Date:20/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/20/stories/2006092003931600.htm

International

Israeli troops to leave Lebanon by weekend

Tel Aviv for serious dialogue with Abbas

PHOTO: AFP

SENTINELS OF PEACE: A convoy of the United Nations peacekeeping force drives on the highway between Beirut and Tyre on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM: Israel's military chief said on Tuesday that Israel plans to withdraw all remaining troops from Lebanon by this weekend, meeting a key requirement of a cease-fire that ended its recent 34-day war against Hizbollah guerillas.

The withdrawal would end a more than two-month troop presence in Lebanon, and complete the transfer of security responsibilities along the border to the Lebanese army and a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force.

Israel invaded Lebanon on July 12 after Hizbollah guerillas crossed the border and killed three Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others.

Re-establishing control

Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, told a closed meeting of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that all remaining troops would leave by the start of the Jewish New Year at sundown on Friday, committee member Ran Cohen said.

``He told me that this afternoon there is a meeting between the Lebanese forces and the U.N. forces and, if everything is OK, then all Israeli soldiers will be out of Lebanon by the eve of the holiday, on Friday,'' Mr. Cohen said.

Under the U.N.-brokered cease-fire, a 15,000-strong U.N. force is to deploy in the south to maintain the cessation of hostilities and assist the Lebanese army in re-establishing control over Hizbollah's southern stronghold. About 5,000 international troops already have been deployed in south Lebanon.

Israel wants to reopen a serious dialogue with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and work with him to establish a Palestinian state, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Tuesday.

Ms. Livni spoke after meeting on Monday Mr. Abbas in New York, in the first working session between high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials in four months. Israel's dialogue with the Palestinians has been largely frozen since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

But Israel considers Mr. Abbas — a moderate elected separately in 2005 — an acceptable negotiating conduit. — AP