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Israel to International Community: Focus on Lebanese UN Violations

[Jerusalem Post] Herb Keinon - On Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev urged the international community to focus on the Lebanese violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 rather than pointing fingers at Israel regarding overflights. Regev said that Israel, by pulling its troops out of Lebanon, fulfilled its core requirement under 1701. The same could not be said of the Lebanese. "Any objective person looking at the implementation of 1701 must agree that the onus now is on the Lebanese side to fulfill its core commitments, and at the moment there are three issues that are lacking," he said. First, IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are still being held captive, in direct opposition to the resolution. Second, the international arms embargo on Hizballah is not fully in place, and "unfortunately there are still illicit arms transfers." Third, the resolution calls for the removal of all Hizballah armed personnel south of the Litani River, something that has not yet been achieved. "So instead of pointing a finger at Israel, we think the international community should be dealing with violations the Lebanese side are making," Regev said. He said the Israeli overflights are "in many ways a response to the continued violation of 1701 on the Lebanese side. In the absence of an enforced arms embargo we have a need to act. In the absence of the removal of armed Hizballah personnel in the south we have a need to act, and any information we can attain on the positions of the hostages is also legitimate."
2006-10-23 01:00:00
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