UN Lebanon resolution recipe for instability-Assad

DAMASCUS, Aug 6 (Reuters) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned of worsening instability if a draft UN Security Council resolution on Lebanon is passed without the approval of all political forces in that country.

The government news agency said Assad told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan by telephone today that ''any decision taken without a Lebanese consensus will complicate matters and deepen instability.'' Annan phoned Assad to discuss the US-French draft resolution, which Syria, a key backer of Hizbollah guerrillas, regards as one-sided and which the speaker of the Lebanese parliament has said is unacceptable.

''There are a number of powers that are trying to secure political gains for Israel that could not be achieved by waging war,'' Assad said.

The draft calls for a ''full cessation of hostilities based upon ... the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations''.

It implicitly gives Israel the right to pursue ''defensive'' military operations without demanding its immediate withdrawal from Lebanese territory it has been occupying since July 12, when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem, who is in Beirut, said the draft resolution could lead to another civil war in Lebanon, which went through a civil war from 1975-1990.

Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri said his country rejected the draft because it would let occupying Israeli forces stay on Lebanese soil.

The resolution envisages a long-term settlement partly based on the ''elimination of foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government''. It does not call for a prisoner exchange -- a key Hizbollah demand.

Assad said Syria backed ''what the Lebanese agree to'', in reference to a peace plan approved by the Lebanese cabinet last month, which Syrian and Lebanese officials say was largely overlooked in the draft resolution.

The plan voted for by the cabinet, including two Hizbollah ministers, calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, including the Shebaa Farms, an area occupied by Israel that the United Nations considers Syrian but which Lebanon and Syria regard as Lebanese.

It also calls a prisoners exchange and expanding an existing UN force in south Lebanon.

REUTERS DH RK0300