US says still no deal on West Asia resolution at UN

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 10 (Reuters) The head of an Arab League team was optimistic that a UN resolution would be approved this week, despite a clash between the United States and France over Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon.

But US Ambassador John Bolton expressed caution, telling reporters late yesterday, ''We are getting closer on the way to resolving some of this, but I don't want to underestimate the central and operational difficulties.'' ''There are areas where we are still not in agreement,'' he said. ''I don't want to appear to minimize that.'' As Israel decided to expand its ground offensive in Lebanon, a US-French draft UN Security Council resolution, aimed at ending fighting in the four-week war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas, was delayed for the fourth time after Arab envoys flew to New York on Tuesday.

''We are pushing for tomorrow'' for a council vote, said Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, head of a three-member Arab delegation.

The United States and France shared his optimism because ''they too want to go to a nice weekend,'' the minister said after meeting Bolton and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere.

France, supporting Beirut, would like to see Israel begin to withdraw when 15,000 Lebanese troops move south to areas controlled by Hizbollah. The United States and Israel say this cannot happen before a planned international force arrives, which France may lead.

Bolton told reporters after talks with Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, that ''we don't want a situation where a withdrawal of Israeli forces leads to a security vacuum that Hizbollah can re-infiltrate.'' De la Sabliere and Bolton briefed the other three Security Council members with veto power -- Britain, Russia and China -- late on Wednesday. The US distributed a revised text and France presented some amendments, participants said.

Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said the council should focus on the immediate steps for a cease-fire.

''The basic elements of what needs to be done are clear. But there are quite a few very complicated ideas about how these basic principles are to be implemented,'' Churkin said.

CHIRAC THREAT The dispute between France and the United States was bitter enough for French President Jacques Chirac to warn he would introduce his own resolution if there was no compromise.

''If we reach an agreement, then so much the better,'' Chirac told a news conference in the southern town of Toulon where he was vacationing.

''If we don't, it is obvious that we will have a debate at the Security Council and each of us will clearly set out our positions, including France with its own resolution,'' Chirac said after summoning ministers to Toulon.

However, he said, ''I cannot imagine that there would be no solution.'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack indicated some flexibility on another problem -- whether or not a new international force would be part of a UN operation, which Lebanon and France want, or separate from it.

''What matters more than the title or a name of a force is what it does, and what it can do, and what it is mandated to do and what is its mission,'' McCormack said in Washington.

Some 1,000 Lebanese and more than 100 Israelis have been killed in four weeks of fighting, sparked when Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Cabinet decided yesterday to expand its ground offensive, possibly as far as 20 km from the border. An Israeli official expected it would take 30 days to complete the offensive.

Reuters MQA VP0753