Annan Talks with MubarakUN Secretary-General Kofi Annan held talks with President Hosni Mubarak yesterday, a day after the Security Council certified Israel's pullout from Lebanon, overriding objections from the government in Beirut.Annan wants Middle Eastern leaders to support plans to deploy UN troops on the Israeli-Lebanese border and encourage the Beirut government to reassert its authority in the south. No details of his talks with Mubarak emerged immediately and Annan later left for Beirut. He is due to visit Syria, which controls Lebanon's policy, and Israel later in the week. Diplomats said he had threatened to cancel the Beirut leg of his tour unless the 15-nation council approved a report he submitted on Friday confirming that Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon in line with a 1978 council resolution. The endorsement puts the weight of major world powers behind Annan's position rather than that of Lebanon, which insists Israel still has manpower and fortifications on its soil. The council, after marathon weekend negotiations, gave the green light for UN troops to patrol the border, but noted that Israel may have violated Lebanese soil since Annan's report. Israel announced its withdrawal on May 24 after which UN cartographers and peacekeepers marked a border line, based on 1923 maps, and checked that the pullout was complete. Israel's UN mission welcomed the council's action and called on Lebanon to reassert its authority in the south. "Lebanon and Syria should take all the necessary measures to ensure that southern Lebanon is not used again as a springboard for terrorist attacks against Israel," its deputy UN ambassador, Aaron Jacobs said in New York. Annan said on Sunday he hoped to double the 4,500-member UN Interim Force in Lebanon and redeploy it. The force is supposed to bolster Lebanese Government control over the south, now dominated by Hizbollah guerrillas, who fought a long war of attrition to expel Israeli troops. Lebanon said yesterday, just before the arrival of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, that UN peacekeepers must immediately remove Israeli forces it alleges are violating the border. The statement by Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss followed a UN Security Council decision to certify that Israel had ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon despite complaints by Beirut that some areas remain under Israeli control. "We see the continuation of the Israeli violation of the international border threatens the safety and sovereignty of Lebanese territories and must not be allowed by the Security Council," the statement said. "The UN forces must take responsibility for removing the Israeli violations on the international borders immediately," Hoss added. Despite the continuing disagreement over the border line drawn by the United Nations to check that Israeli forces had withdrawn completely from southern Lebanon, Hoss said Lebanon would co-operate with the United Nations. The UN Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen told reporters in New York he was leaving for Beirut immediately "with a powerful instrument in my pocket" - the council's endorsement. After talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa on Sunday, Annan played down the spat with Lebanon. "I would not describe what is between the United Nations and Lebanon as a dispute. It is more of a small hurdle that will be overcome," he told a news conference, but insisted the world body be responsible for verifying any border violations. "If we hand over the verification to either party, then we are entering dangerous ground," he declared. |
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