World

Lebanon Nixes Any Treaty With Israel

August 30, 2006 / 8:14 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Wednesday that he refused to have any direct contact with Israel, and Israel should forget about friendly relations between the two countries.

"Lebanon will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel," he said at a news conference in Beirut. "Let it be clear, we are not seeking any agreement until there is just and comprehensive peace based on the Arab initiative."

He was referring to a plan that came out of a 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut. It calls for Israel to return all territories it conquered in the 1967 Mideast war, for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and for a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem — all in exchange for peace and full normalization of Arab relations with Israel.

In other developments:

U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Israel must lift its closure of the Gaza Strip and open crossing points there. Israel has closed cargo and pedestrian crossing points for long stretches this year following security alerts and attacks by Palestinain militants, causing widespread hardship for the Palestinians.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that he and Syria would "build a new world" free of U.S. domination. "We have decided to be free. We want to cooperate to build a new world where states' and people's self-determination are respected," Chavez said after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.

Israeli troops launched air strikes on the outskirts of Gaza City and exchanged gunfire with Palestinian militants Wednesday, killing five people, officials said. Israeli forces have been searching for smuggling tunnels and explosives in Gaza City's Shijaiyeh neighborhood since the weekend and have killed a total of 15 Palestinians, most of them militants, doctors said. The troops reportedly also flattened crops, destroyed greenhouses and chicken coops and uprooted dozens of trees on Wednesday.

A Hezbollah Cabinet minister said Wednesday that the guerrilla group will not release two captured Israeli soldiers unconditionally, and that they would only be freed in a prisoner exchange. Israel went to war with Hezbollah last month after the capture of the soldiers.

Saniora said Wednesday that his government would pay $33,000 per house to compensate residents whose homes were destroyed by Israeli attacks. He said more than 130,000 housing units had been destroyed or damaged. He did not say how many houses were completely destroyed.

The European Commission announced Wednesday it will pledge $54 million at Thursday's conference in Stockholm to raise money to rebuild Lebanon. The money will be in addition to the $64 million that the European Union's head office has already earmarked for emergency relief to Lebanon.

Israel has long sought a peace treaty with Lebanon, but Beirut has hesitated as long as Israel's conflicts with the Palestinians and Syria remained unresolved.

Saniora said Lebanon wants to go back to the 1949 armistice agreement that formally ended the Arab-Israeli war over Israel's creation.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier Wednesday that the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire could be "a cornerstone to build a new reality between Israel and Lebanon."

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Annan also said they hoped the cease-fire deal could evolve into a full-fledged peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

Implementation of the cease-fire "gives us a foundation to move forward and settle the differences between Israel and Lebanon once and for all, to establish a durable peace," Annan said.

Israel on Wednesday, however, sidestepped demands by the visiting U.N. Secretary-General that it lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon immediately and withdraw its forces from Lebanon once 5,000 international troops are deployed there.

Saniora said he thought that, owing to diplomatic efforts, the blockade could be lifted "in the next few days."

In a joint news conference with Annan, Olmert suggested Israel is only prepared to do that once a U.N.-brokered cease-fire deal is implemented fully.

The agreement ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, and both Annan and Israeli officials said they hoped the truce would lead to a full peace between the two countries.

Under the U.N.-brokered truce, 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and up to 15,000 international troops are to be deployed and enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah. The 2,500 U.N. observers currently monitoring the Israel-Lebanon border have a very limited mandate.

Israel has said it would not lift its blockade unless international forces, along with Lebanese troops, are deployed not only on the Israel-Lebanon border, but also on Lebanon's frontier with Syria, to prevent the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah.

Syria has said it would consider the presence of international troops on its border a hostile act and Lebanon has said it would deploy its own forces there, but bar international troops. Annan has backed Lebanon in the dispute.

The U.N. chief said Wednesday that Lebanese authorities assured him they were serious about enforcing the arms embargo on Hezbollah, and that Israel's security concerns could be addressed in this way.

"We need to be flexible, because I don't think there's ever only one way of solving a problem. We shouldn't insist that the only way to do it is by deploying international forces," he said.

The lifting of the blockade is necessary to help Lebanon's economy recover from the war and to strengthen Lebanon's government. "I do believe the blockade should be lifted," Annan said in a news conference with Olmert.