UNSC unanimously approves Mideast resolution

United Nations, Aug 12: The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that calls for an end to bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel and authorizes up to 15,000 UN troops to help enforce it.

The 15-0 vote, after weeks of nonstop negotiations, is the first concrete attempt to end to a month of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah militia that has killed some 1,000 Lebanese and 121 Israelis.

A deal on the resolution's text, negotiated by the United States and France, was announced only hours before the vote by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.

The resolution calls for a ''full cessation of hostilities'' and tells Hizbollah to stop all attacks immediately and Israel to end ''all offensive operations.'' Once fighting subsides, Israel is expected to undertake a phased withdrawal from Lebanon as the Lebanese army and an expanded UN peacekeeping force of up to 15,000 troops deploys in southern Lebanon, now controlled by Hizbollah.

But Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a lengthy address to the council, chastised it for not acting sooner when civilians on both sides ''have suffered such terrible, unnecessary pain and loss.'' ''All members of this council must be aware that this inability to act sooner has badly shaken the world's faith in its authority and integrity,'' Annan said yesterday. ''War is not politics by other means.'' Annan said he would work with the parties over the weekend to help establish a timeline for a truce.

''Lebanon has been a victim for too long, mired in an incomplete political transformation since the end of the civil war,'' Annan said. ''Over the last five weeks we have been reminded yet again what a tense fragile region the Middle East has become.'' Despite the escalating fighting, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Lebanese cabinet would consider the resolution on Saturday and the Israeli cabinet on Sunday. Both nations have indicated acceptance.

But Qatar's foreign minister, who was a key negotiator for Lebanon, gave a litany of complaints about how the resolution failed to meet Beirut's demands.

''The draft resolution failed to adequately take into consideration the interests of Lebanon's security, its stability and its territorial integrity,'' said Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, head of an Arab delegation.

Rice cautioned that no one could expect the resolution to end all violence, saying, ''the conditions of a lasting peace must be nurtured over time.'' ''Now the hard and urgent work of implementation begins,'' Rice said.'' In addition to Rice, Beckett and Sheikh Hamad, foreign ministers from France, Denmark and Greece -- countries with seats on the council -- raised their hands for the vote in the meeting chaired by Ghana's foreign minister, Nana Akufo-Addo.

The resolution empowers new troops in the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, to ''take all necessary action'' needed to perform their duties.

At the insistence of Lebanon the text deletes mention of Chapter 7 of the UN Charter but uses language from that provision that allows robust enforcement.

Annan, however, warned that the 2,000-member UNIFIL, now in Lebanon would have to withdraw if a cease-fire did not hold.

The resolution imposes an arms embargo on Lebanon on the delivery of weapons or military equipment to ''any entity or individual,'' excluding the Lebanese army and UN troops.

But only the preamble of the resolution, which carries less weight, calls for the unconditional release of Israeli soldiers abducted by Hizbollah on August 12 in a cross-border raid that started the conflict. Israel then attacked Lebanon and Hizbollah guerrillas rained rockets on northern Israel.

Reuters

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