The US secretary of state said Tuesday any cease-fire in Lebanon ought to be based on fundamental changes, publicly disagreeing with her Egyptian counterpart, who called for an immediate halt to fighting. As part of international efforts to end the violence, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for a bigger, better-armed and more robust international force to stabilize Southern Lebanon and buy time for the government to disarm Hizbullah guerrillas. Rice, at a joint news conference in Washington with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit, said she was primed to visit the region when it will be "helpful and necessary."
Asked about calls for an immediate cease-fire in the region, Abu al-Gheit said: "A cease-fire is imperative, and we have to keep working to reach that objective. It is impera-tive. We have to bring it to an end as soon as possible ... We should do it now." Rice immediately stated the US position, that a cease-fire was only advisable once the root cause of the fighting - including, in the US view, Hizbullah's attacks - was addressed. "We all agree it should happen as soon as possible, when conditions are conducive to do so," Rice said.
That, she said, would involve implementation of a standing UN Security Council resolution and the deployment of the Lebanese Army to the borders, as well as the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation. "We all want a cessation of violence. We all want the protection of civilians. We have to make certain that anything that we do is going to be of lasting value," Rice said. |