France's UN ambassador submitted a revised draft UN resolution seeking an end to the fighting in Lebanon but yesterday questioned whether the Security Council would be able to vote this week.
The United States, however, hopes some agreement can be reached on a text as early as today. "We're certainly getting close," US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told CNN yesterday.
"We are now working on a Security Council resolution and hopefully we can get that passed. I think it will certainly be within days," she added.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière told reporters: "Yesterday morning I was confident that we could have a resolution adopted in the coming days, but by the end of the day I was less confident. I hope that today it will be a positive day, that I will be again more confident," Mr de la Sablière said before talks with US envoy John Bolton.
The United States, France and Britain have been working for a resolution that would call for a truce in the fight between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbullah and propose a framework for a lasting political solution to the conflict. That measure would be the first of two planned resolutions. The second would authorise an international peacekeeping force and set out terms for a permanent ceasefire and the disarmament of Hizbullah.
The latest draft of the initial resolution circulated to the Security Council's 15 members also proposes beefing up the UN peacekeeping mission now in southern Lebanon, known as Unifil, to monitor implementation of the truce until a more robust international force can be assembled.
The United States would like an international force in southern Lebanon immediately after a truce. But France, touted as a leader for such a force, does not want its troops caught in a crossfire between Israel and Hizbullah. It wants a force sent in only after the permanent ceasefire is in place.
A related open question is who would stay in a conflict-free buffer zone along Lebanon's southern border after a truce. Israel wants its troops to remain in the area until an international force is in place while Lebanon is expected to object to an Israeli presence. - (Reuters)