Rice Postpones Planned Visit to Beirut After Airstrike in Qana
30 July 2006
Secretary says she will continue work in Jerusalem toward cease-fire
Washington -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has postponed her planned visit to Beirut, aimed at hammering out a cease-fire between Israel and Hizballah fighters, in the wake of Israel's latest airstrike in Lebanon.
Rice told reporters in Jerusalem July 30 that she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life in the bombing in Lebanon this morning" -- a bombing that reportedly killed at least 50 people, many of them children, in the southern Lebanese village of Qana.
Rice said she had spoken by telephone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to express her condolences as well as those of President Bush and the American people.
In remarks at the White House the same day, President Bush said America "mourns the loss of innocent life."
"It's a tragic occasion when innocent people are killed, and so our sympathies go out to those who lost their lives today, and lost their lives throughout this crisis," he said.
Rice said that, in lieu of her planned trip to Beirut, she would spend the day continuing her peacemaking efforts in Jerusalem.
"My work today is here. I will continue to meet with Israeli officials as we work to put in place the elements necessary to bring an end to this conflict," she said. She said she planned to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel later in the day, immediately after a scheduled meeting of the Israeli cabinet.
"We are making real progress on a political framework and believe the parties are coming together on this aspect. We are also pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities," Rice added.
Questioned by reporters, the secretary declined once again to call for an immediate cease-fire.
"I think it's time to get to a cease-fire," she said, but indicated that further work needed to be done to achieve one. "The parties have to agree to a cease-fire, and there have to be certain conditions in place. Any cease-fire has to have circumstances that are going to be acceptable to the parties," she said.
Any lasting settlement must provide assurances that terrorists can no longer carry out attacks on Israel from an adjacent zone in southern Lebanon like those that lead to "the kind of devastating circumstances that we see today," Rice said.
Though Lebanese officials were quoted as saying they had asked Rice to postpone her visit, the secretary stressed that the decision had been hers. She said that, when she called Siniora, she "told him that I was not coming today" due to pressing work toward a cease-fire that needed to be done in Jerusalem.
Rice said the United States is working hard in its efforts to stop the violence. Her current trip to the region was aimed at enabling the United Nations Security Council "to take decisive action for a cease-fire as soon as possible," she said. (See related article.)
"Too many innocent people -- Lebanese and Israeli -- have suffered. Too many people have lost their lives; too many families are homeless and too many children have been killed, injured, are living in fear for their lives," the secretary said.
She noted that she had received word of the strike on Qana even as she was meeting with Israeli officials and "reiterating our strong concern about the impact of Israeli military operations on innocent civilians during crisis."
U.S. SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL FORCE IN LEBANON
Discussion of the crisis in the Middle East dominated three Sunday television interview appearances by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns on Fox News Sunday, ABC's This Week and CNN's Late Edition.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Burns expressed optimism that the United Nations would agree on establishment of a multinational force in southern Lebanon to separate the combatants and "provide for a more permanent peace."
Although he declined to name them, Burns reported that "a number of countries ... have already indicated they wish to be part of such a force."
He said that although the United States itself would not put ground troops in Lebanon, "We’re certainly going to give strong political support."
The force contemplated will have to be "strong enough to be able to hit back if it's attacked by militia like Hizballah, but a force that cements in place some type of durable cease fire that the people of Israel and the people of Lebanon both deserve," Burns said.
The United Nations held an emergency meeting July 30 to discuss the situation in Lebanon.
Burns said that although it may be "fashionable to say that somehow Hizballah is doing well" in the confrontation with Israel, in fact there has been "a degrading of Hizballah military capabilities in the South, of their civilian headquarters in Beirut ... This has not been a good two-and-a-half weeks for Hizballah from a military point of view."
As neither Israel nor the United States speaks directly to Hizballah, arrangements aimed at achieving a cease-fire must be worked out between Israel and Lebanon, Burns said.
"One of the things we want to do here, all of us, is to build up the sovereignty of the government of Lebanon," the under secretary noted.
And, he said, "Hizballah has to understand that this conflict isn't going to come to an end until it puts down its arms."
IRAN AND SYRIA
Burns also criticized Iran and Syria for their involvement in the conflict.
"Iran and Syria have acted irresponsibly. They're the ones funding Hizballah. They are the ones providing those long-range rockets ... that have caused so much damage to Israeli towns and casualties in Israel itself," he said on CNN's Late Edition.
"The Syrian and Iranian governments know exactly what they have to do to be responsible and to try to help the international community bring this conflict to an end, but they are acting in a reverse fashion. They're the ones who have stoked this conflict. A lot of the responsibility for what's happened in the last two and a half weeks rests with the government in Tehran and certainly the government in Damascus as well," he said.
Burns observed on Fox News Sunday that, "this war between Israel and Hizballah is also about Iran. Hizballah is a proxy for Iran. Hizballah is financed by Iran, and those long-range rockets that have hit Israeli cities, they're made in Iran."
IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAMS
Asked about efforts to persuade Iran to curtail its nuclear programs, Burns responded, "I think the Iranians are cornered."
He said the United Nations Security Council would vote later in the week to require suspension of the programs, and would propose sanctions be imposed if Iran does not comply by August 31.
Burns said Iran had counted on Russia and China to fend off action by opposing sanctions, but "that’s not happened," and the Security Council "including China and Russia will agree on a sanctions regime."
For more information on U.S. policies, see The Middle East: A Vision for the Future and Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Bush's remarks on the Qana bombing are available on the White House Web site. The transcript of Rice's July 30 briefing is available on the State Department Web site. A transcript of Under Secretary Burns' remarks on CNN's Late Edition is available on the network's Web site.
The text of a U.N. press release on the July 30 meeting is available on the organization's Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
