Israeli Government Denies Asking Annan To Lead Talks With Hezbollah

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

UNITED NATIONS — Israeli officials denied yesterday that they asked Secretary-General Annan to serve as negotiator in freeing two soldiers whose kidnapping — and Prime Minister Olmert’s refusal to negotiate for their release — resulted in a month-long war against Hezbollah.

Desperate to salvage what is seen as a failed Middle East trip, Mr. Annan had announced earlier in the day that Israel and Hezbollah had “accepted” him as mediator. He said no one else should serve as intermediary and widely publicized his intention to conduct “discreet” negotiations.

An aide traveling with Mr. Annan, who asked not to be identified, told The New York Sun yesterday that Mr. Olmert asked for the secretary-general’s help in freeing the Israeli soldiers.

An unnamed official in Mr. Olmert’s office, however, told Israel Radio that Mr. Annan was not asked to mediate during his visit to Jerusalem last week. Israel will only accept such mediation after the kidnapped soldiers are transferred to the Lebanese government, the official said.

Other officials quoted in the Israeli press added that Israel’s point man on freeing the soldiers will not “share a negotiating table” with Hezbollah terrorists.

Hezbollah spokesmen declined to comment on Mr. Annan’s purported mediation role. The Lebanese culture minister, Tarek Mitri, said his government will not mediate in the release of the soldiers and that it has no influence over Hezbollah on this issue.

Jerusalem’s refusal to make a deal for the release of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in the aftermath of their July 12 kidnapping was the declared cause of Israel’s 33-day war on Hezbollah. In tacit recognition that Israel was in the right, U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 called for an “unconditional” release of the soldiers.

Mr. Annan, however, dropped the word “unconditional” in his public statements in the region and linked the release of the Israeli soldiers to a Lebanese prisoner swap. He also demanded that Israel remove a blockade it imposed on Lebanon in order to prevent Hezbollah from rearming.

A U.N. aide told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Annan has already decided who will lead the mediating efforts.

“I won’t even tell you the name of the person either today or tomorrow because I want him to be able to work discreetly,” Mr. Annan told a press conference yesterday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

But Israeli officials questioned the public nature of Mr. Annan’s announcement, which came at the end of an 11-day regional trip in which pomp seemed to prevail over content.

“If he is going to mediate, why is he announcing it? Why doesn’t he just mediate?” an official in Mr. Olmert’s office told NRG, the Web site of the newspaper Maariv. The official characterized reports in the region of several other mediation attempts as “a lot of noise and very little action.”

Hezbollah has refused any mediation efforts as long as the Israeli blockade on Lebanon continues, according to the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat. The newspaper reported that Hezbollah relayed that message to a mediator, the German intelligence chief Ernst Uhrlau, who visited Beirut over the weekend.

Germany in the past has quietly and successfully negotiated with Hezbollah for the release of Israelis, including the businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum, who was kidnapped and brought to Lebanon, and the bodies of three kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Mr. Uhrlau, in contrast to Mr. Annan, declined to comment on his Beirut mission.

“Both parties have accepted the good offices of the secretary-general to help resolve this problem, and I will designate someone discreetly and quietly to work with them to find a solution,” Mr. Annan said yesterday. “The only thing that I insisted on was that if I am going to use my good offices, then my mediator should be the only mediator. If others get involved, he will pull out.”

His announcement came at the end of a trip designed to promote the implementation of resolution 1701. The only hard demand Mr. Annan made during the trip was for Israel to remove the blockade. “I have been in touch with the Israeli prime minister as well as the American administration to press for the lifting of the blockade,” he said yesterday.

In Damascus, Mr. Annan said Syria will enforce the weapons embargo the council resolution requires, but no Syrian official would confirm it. Mr. Annan added that Iran will help implement the resolution, but during his Tehran visit, no official said Iran will cease transferring weapons to Hezbollah.

Mr. Annan also said he told President Ahmadinejad in Tehran that the Holocaust was an “undeniable” fact. But on the day of Mr. Annan’s visit, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said that this fall Iran will conduct a conference questioning the Holocaust.


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