US, France working on two-phase UN Mideast plan

UNITED NATIONS - The United States, France and Britain hope for a Security Council resolution within a week that would call for a truce and perhaps beef up UN peacekeepers in Lebanon until a more robust force can be formed, diplomats and UN officials said today.

The United States and France, council diplomats said, are rapidly working out differences on an initial resolution that would also call for the creation of a buffer zone and the disarmament of Hizbollah guerrillas.

But Paris, mentioned as leader of an international force, has insisted it would not send troops without a truce and an agreement in principle on the framework for a long-term peace deal by Israel, Hizbollah and the Beirut government. Washington wants a force as soon as fighting stops.

A second resolution would therefore be needed to set out a permanent cease-fire that all combatants could accept while also authorising an international force in southern Lebanon.

A key issue is whether all sides would accept a truce in the three-week old war between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah that has killed more than 600 Lebanese and 55 Israelis.

Another key question is whether the rest of the 15-nation council would line up behind the major Western powers. The other two permanent council members with veto power - Russia, which has close ties to Syria, and China - have not yet been involved in the negotiations.

"The first resolution is stop the fighting and ... the second resolution deals with the issues of a force and a longer-term border security," said Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy UN secretary-general.

He told PBS' "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" that council diplomats felt one way to bridge the gap between Paris and Washington was "to stop the fighting but to combine in that first resolution ... a range of political principles which would shape a later full cease-fire and settlement."

Another difference was whether an international force would "police a political deal" as France wants or "force a Hizbollah disarmament," Malloch Brown said."

"The United States wants a more robust force, believing Hizbollah will disarm only in the face of force. So (they) have to find a way of bridging that as well," he said.

The United States has anticipated a Security Council meeting on the conflict at the foreign minister level next week, but no date has been set.

In search of a framework

US Ambassador John Bolton played down differences between Washington and Paris, particularly on an immediate call for a truce. But he said there were differences over "the nature of a cessation of hostilities and how to make it permanent."

"What we are talking about now is something that will certainly set up the framework for the larger political foundation for a sustainable cease-fire," Bolton said.

"But the precise way that this will be done, how many resolutions will be involved, remains to be seen. Things are changing on the ground also," he said.

Among the peacekeeping options, UN officials said, were beefing up the 2,000-strong UN force already in Lebanon or fielding a rapid-reaction force that as yet has no volunteers.

Bolton said one option was "two different kinds of forces in two different kinds of periods, because the situation at the outset when a force might come in could well be substantially different over a six-month period and a longer term."

Another point of discussion was how to make sure during a truce period that more arms were not being shipped to Hizbollah through Syria, Bolton said.

- REUTERS