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Hezbollah Nods to Annan's Mediation, Insists on Swapping Captives
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem announced Wednesday that the Lebanese guerrilla group will welcome U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's mediation if he can bring some "acceptable advice."
Qassem told a news conference in south Lebanon that the three Israeli soldiers captured by his group last week could only be released through their swapping with detained Lebanese and Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
"Hezbollah leaders have decided that we shall not talk much about the development and the demands of the exchanging process so as to keep the swapping moving soundly," the Hezbollah No. 2 man said.
He stressed that the UN Security Council 425, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, has not been carried out fully although the United Nations thought Israel has implemented it.
Israel withdrew its troops from south Lebanon in May, ending its 22-year occupation there. The UN recognized the redeployment.
However, Hezbollah insists that the Israeli pullout is not complete. "The Shebaa Farms and other three points on the border are still under Israeli occupation. This is our opinion as well as the government's position," Qassem said.
Israel seized the farms, on the border with Lebanon and Syria, in the 1967 Mideast war and said the fate of the farms should be solved through its peace negotiations with Syria.
Syria and Lebanon both claim that the farms belong to Lebanon.
Hezbollah guerrillas last Saturday ambushed an Israeli patrol team and captured three Israeli soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak immediately held Lebanese and Syrian governments responsible for their safe return and threatened "possible measures to get them back."
Qassem defied Barak's threat, saying that Barak has to shoulder all the consequences and that power policy can do nothing but escalate the crisis.
The leader of the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, revealed that the group had planned to seize Israeli soldiers for a long time. "It was not a secret. Even Israel knew it but they can not foil it," he added, "we made use of the time of intifada in the occupied land and succeeded in our plan."
He said all efforts of exchanging captives will go on through some channels, not through media.
Annan is scheduled to arrive in Beirut later Wednesday to talk with Lebanese leaders about the current Middle East crises, especially the fate of the Israeli captives, after which he will go on to Damascus for talks with Syrian leaders.
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