UN: Verification of Lebanon withdrawal line to be completed soon

By David Rudge, erusalem Post, 13.6.00

HAIFA (June 13) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reportedly has been in contact with Iranian President Mohammed Khatami over the developments in south Lebanon.

Hizbullah's Manar television station, which broadcasts from Lebanon, said Khatami had underlined Iran's support for the efforts being made by the UN and especially Annan and that he had expressed the hope that real stability and security would prevail in south Lebanon.

Annan's office at UN headquarters in New York, meanwhile, issued a statement yesterday indicating that he expects the process of verifying Israel's pullout to the withdrawal line drawn up by UN cartographers to be completed within 24 hours. Annan is due in Israel on June 21 as part of a trip to the region to verify the withdrawal, according to UN sources in New York. He is also to visit Lebanon.

"The verification process has begun and the secretary-general has given instructions to UNIFIL to complete its task urgently, if possible within the next 24 hours," news agencies quoted the spokesman for Annan's office as saying. "Verification is the sole responsibility of UNIFIL, but the task will require the full cooperation of the parties which the secretary-general is confident of receiving."

"We have finished the verification with the Israelis. We are now working on the Lebanese side and I regret to say that this is going rather slowly," Annan told Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television channel.

Lebanon has raised objections over some parts of the withdrawal line, claiming that it does not comply with the 1923 international boundary and leaves some areas of Lebanese territory inside Israel.

Annan's special Middle East envoy Terje Larsen has made it clear that the line determined by UN cartographers is based on the best available evidence and historical documentation. He stressed that it is the UN's job to mark the withdrawal line, but not the border between Israel and Lebanon, indicating that this is a matter for the two countries themselves.

UNIFIL verification teams are continuing work on the Lebanese side of the border on actually confirming that Israel has withdrawn to the line. UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel said the work is being hampered because of mines left behind by the IDF.

The UNIFIL verification teams are being accompanied by Lebanese technical experts, who are examining the withdrawal line for their own purposes.

The work is expected to be completed by tonight or tomorrow and a report will then be submitted to Annan and will later be presented to the Security Council and the Lebanese government for approval.

In an unrelated development yesterday, news agencies reported that a grave containing the bodies of 17 gunmen from the Lebanese Communist Party had been discovered in Bint Jbeil. They were apparently killed in fighting with IDF troops during the 1978 Litani Operation.

Meanwhile, some former SLA soldiers and their families and other south Lebanese residents who fled to Israel have complained about the conditions where they are housed at the Achziv holiday site north of Nahariya.

A report on Channel 2 said some of the refugees charged that a recent meal there had made them ill and that some of them had threatened a hunger strike unless their conditions were improved.

Officials in charge of caring for the refugees, however, were quoted as saying that they appeared to be suffering more from homesickness and not knowing what was happening to the relatives they had left behind.

The IDF Spokesman was quoted as saying that responsibility for the meals served at the site was that of the management there.