The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will press for an unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon at an emergency meeting in Malaysia this week, the Malaysian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the current chairperson of the OIC, called for the August 3 meeting after weeks of military aggression by Israel against Lebanon as well as the Palestinian Authority, the ministry said in a statement.
The meeting was also expected to urge the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force which must include OIC member states, the ministry said.
”The agenda of the meeting is to discuss the current situation and developments in Lebanon and Palestine for determining the action to be taken by the OIC countries,” it added.
It said Egypt, Iran and Syria are among the 18 member countries attending the meeting.
At least 605 people have been killed in Lebanon, although the health minister puts the toll at 750 including bodies still buried under rubble. Fifty-one Israelis have also been killed.
The Israeli army has also killed 151 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, in Gaza since it began an offensive to stop gunmen from firing rockets into Israel and to pressure militants to free a soldier armed groups captured on June 25.
The Saudi-based OIC is the world’s largest Islamic body, gathering 57 countries with majority Muslim populations around the world.
Big force, clear orders
France, which could lead a new international peace-keeping force for Lebanon, said that such a force must be big, sufficiently well armed and have precise guidelines when it comes to opening fire.
The force must be bigger than the current United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) and be more than the 10 000 suggested by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview published on Tuesday.
Military officials in France, which has emerged as a possible leader, have said the new Lebanon force should be 15 000-20 000 strong. ”There is no question of it being a Unifil Mark Two,” Alliot-Marie told the Le Monde daily.
”It must be a very large international force with very precise missions. It must be well-armed, have substantial firepower and armour. It must be credible and capable of making itself respected by everyone,” she added.
Alliot-Marie repeated the French view that the Lebanon force could only deploy once a ceasefire had been established and a political accord reached between Syrian- and Iran-backed Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israeli forces.
But a political accord seems far off and the United Nations on Monday postponed indefinitely a meeting called to begin planning for a Lebanon peacekeeping force.
Israel does not want to stop its three-week-old offensive before the force starts arriving — something France will not contemplate. Hezbollah has said it would not accept any solution it found humiliating but did not elaborate.
Right to shoot
Alliot-Marie said the Lebanon force must not repeat the mistakes of previous UN-backed missions.
She said it must have the right to open fire when necessary. ”It’s because they’ve been told that they don’t have the right to open fire that all UN forces have had problems,” she said.
”Remember … what happened in Ivory Coast with ONUCI [United Nations Mission in Ivory Coast] or the Unifil in Lebanon: each time you have forces asked to enforce things that aren’t very clear, without giving them a deterrent,” she said.
Only countries with real military know-how should take part in the force, which should avoid becoming a kaleidoscope of nations that would lose its effectiveness, she said.
Military experts say France, which already has about 13 000 service personnel deployed abroad, could send around 5 000 troops to Lebanon though the Le Figaro daily said military planners felt the country was reaching its limit.
”It won’t be easy. We’ve reached our deployment limit now, not so much in terms of numbers of personnel but in terms of command capacity,” the paper quoted one officer as saying. – Reuters