Lebanon urges EU to pressure US on Middle East

STRASBOURG - Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called on the European Union today to put pressure on the United States to play a more constructive role in achieving peace in the Middle East.

Addressing the European Parliament, Siniora said the Arab and Muslim worlds were at a crossroads that could either lead to peace or further extremism.

"Delay in finding solutions is not going to keep things as is," he said. "The situation is going to get more and more complicated. The way to deal with it is to go to the root causes."

Siniora said what was needed was not only a fair implementation of the UN Security Council resolution to end the Israeli-Hizbollah conflict, but a resumption of the peace process to create a viable Palestinian state.

"The EU has a very important role," he told Reuters afterwards. "Specifically, the EU can and must now put pressure on the United States to play a more constructive role, which they have failed to do so far.

"It is about confidence, the people of our region have confidence in Europe and simply do not in the United States.

"Just look at the Iran problem and you can see the importance of Europe in trying to solve a problem," he said referring to EU's leading role in trying to resolve the standoff over Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

Siniora said Europe had shown its commitment to Middle East peace by the numbers of troops its countries had pledged to the enhanced UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Siniora called for the issue of Shebaa farms to be resolved. The Shebaa Farms is a small patch of land claimed by Lebanon, but occupied by Israel since it captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war. The United Nations deems the territory Syrian until such time as Syria cedes it to Lebanon.

He called continued Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory the "mother of all ills" and said it must be brought to an end.

"There won't be any valid argument then for the continuation of weapons in the hands of Hizbollah." he told a news briefing when asked about Hizbollah's claim last week to have more than 20,000 rockets after a month of war with Israel.

Speaking at a rally last Friday, Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah rejected international calls to disarm and warned UN peacekeepers not to seek confrontation.

Ensuring that Lebanese territory was fully under Lebanese control would empower moderates and "pull the rug from beneath the feet of the extremists," Siniora said.

"This is the way how we can help Lebanon so that no foreign powers will interfere in the domestic powers of the country."

A UN commander said this week that Israeli troops should be out of south Lebanon within days, but Israeli media said disagreements over the disarming of Hizbollah meant this could be delayed.

- REUTERS