UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to meet US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief
Javier Solana on Thursday in New York to discuss the situation in
the Middle East, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown
announced Wednesday.
"It will be a private dinner," Brown told reporters at UN
headquarters in New York. "There will be a broader meeting, either
before it or the following morning with the mission and
others."
He stressed that "we are trying to get everybody on the same
page about the facts of what's happening in this very confusing
situation."
There is a common international position because there is no
doubt that the ability of the international community to influence
these extremely dangerous events in the region will be enormously
helped if everybody is as close to each other as possible in terms
of the messages they are delivering to the leaders of the region,
he argued.
The deputy secretary-general also announced that Annan will
address the Security Council Thursday on the situation in the
Middle East.
The secretary-general "didn't want the deteriorating
humanitarian situation in Lebanon and Gaza to go unnoted by us in
the meantime, and so the need to bring this to a stop while we find
a longer term political and security solution is one that he will
be stressing tomorrow in the council," the deputy secretary-general
said.
Brown further explained that the secretary-general preferred a
"cessation of hostilities" which is at initial stage just both
sides stop confrontation.
He mentioned three phases, which are to stop the killing of
civilians, to put in place a negotiated longer term settlement, and
to look at enhancing the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) with
perhaps a new mission with a robuster mandate and perhaps more
force.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed 57 civilians
and a Hezbollah fighter Wednesday, the deadliest toll of the
eight-day-old war, as thousands of villagers fled north and more
foreigners were evacuated.
(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2006)
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