U.S. & World News

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ― The United States and France are working on two resolutions to overcome the impasse at the United Nations toward ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, though differences remain on a number of key points.

The first resolution would call for an immediate cease-fire and lay out political principles for a long-term settlement of the dispute, while the second would deal with deploying an international force to secure the border between Lebanon and Israel and other long-term issues.

"Doing it in at least two resolutions, if not more, creates much more manageable, bite-sized ways of moving the diplomacy forward and allowing you to stop the fighting at the start, rather than waiting until the end of a torturous, complex, long diplomatic process," U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said Wednesday night on PBS' The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

The U.N. Security Council has thus far failed to take any action to stop the three-week-old war, primarily because of opposition from the United States, Israel's closest ally. The U.S. opposes a cessation of hostilities without simultaneous steps to deploy peacekeepers and tackle Hezbollah's disarmament.

France, on the other hand, has insisted that the fighting be halted first to pave the way for a wider peace.

"The compromise between that is to stop the fighting, but to combine in that first resolution ... the political principles which would shape a later full cease-fire and settlement. So it's kind of trying to bridge the issue," Malloch Brown said.

Diplomats said the key elements in that framework include halting the fighting, disarming Hezbollah, deploying peacekeepers and creating a buffer zone in south Lebanon free of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops.

"We've been making progress here in New York and in exchanges between capitals," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday. "There are differences in approach to the nature of the cessation of hostilities, and how to make them permanent, but there is near complete agreement on the fundamental framework that has to be put in place."

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the U.S. and France were working "on the same sheet of paper when it comes to what everybody said was an unbridgeable chasm with regard to Lebanon."

Any resolution will also have to gain the acceptance of Lebanon and Israel, which could prove difficult.

Israel has said it wants an armed force with a mandate to confront militants and seeks NATO involvement. Lebanon, however, wants an expansion of the current U.N. peacekeeping force, deployed in south Lebanon since 1978.

The United States had been pushing for a meeting Thursday of nations that could send troops to south Lebanon, but France refused to participate, saying a meeting is premature without a framework for a political settlement and a decision on what the force is going to do.

As a result, the troop contributors meeting was postponed for the second time.

Ghana's U.N. Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, president of the Security Council for August, said he told members they should let the United States and France try to bridge the gap in their negotiations this week. He doubted there would be a Security Council meeting this week.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry was more optimistic.

"I'm confident that by tomorrow (Thursday), we'll be in a position to have discussions in the council on a text which actually takes us forward," he said. "Prospects now of adoption soon of a resolution have improved considerably."

Muslim leaders at an emergency summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia called for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire and deployment of a multinational force.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz warned "this paralysis is dangerous" and could have serious long-term consequences for the Middle East.

"The failure of the international community, especially the United Nations and the world powers, to halt this outrage, is adding to popular anger in the region and around the world," he said at the meeting.

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