Muslim world demands Lebanon ceasefire, peace role

MALAYSIA: Leaders from the Muslim world, spearheaded by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Thursday sought an immediate end to Israeli attacks on Lebanon and inclusion of Muslim forces in any future peacekeeping operation.

Mindful of restive populations back home, and aghast at the death toll in heavily Muslim southern Lebanon, select members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference gathered in special session - more than three weeks after the start of the crisis.

"We must show preparedness to contribute forces for peacekeeping operations under the United Nations banner," Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister and host of the conference, said in remarks prepared for delivery behind closed doors. "Malaysia is ready to do that."

Diplomats from OIC countries say they want some member states - Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan have all been mentioned - to contribute to a "Blue Helmet" force of U.N. peacekeepers to separate the combatants.

The OIC, its leaders under mounting domestic pressure, is also hopeful it can lean on Western powers, chiefly Israel's superpower ally the United States, to back an immediate ceasefire and deploy peacekeepers.

"We don't want a clash of civilisations, but all over the Muslim world a very negative feeling is arising in the streets," Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters before the start of the meeting in Malaysia's administrative capital.

Among others attending were the president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, the prime minister of Muslim powerhouse Turkey, and representatives of Pakistan, Egypt, and Lebanon.

But it was the charismatic figure of Ahmadinejad, his hardline comments on Israel reinvigorated by public backing from Iran's supreme clerical leader, that was most likely to animate the conference and advance efforts to get the OIC's voice heard above the diplomatic din.

Meanwhile the head of the olc said that the Islamic world was "outraged" over international "double standards" towards the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish national, also warned that another failed peace initiative would only fuel more violence and terror and threaten global peace and stability.

Meanwhile the United States, France and Britain hope for a Security Council resolution within a week that would call for a truce and perhaps beef up U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon until a more robust force can be formed, diplomats and U.N. officials said on Wednesday.

The United States and France, council diplomats said, are rapidly working out differences on an initial resolution that would also call for the creation of a buffer zone and the disarmament of Hizbollah guerrillas.

But Paris, mentioned as leader of an international force, has insisted it would not send troops without a truce and an agreement in principle on the framework for a long-term peace deal by Israel, Hizbollah and the Beirut government. Washington wants a force as soon as fighting stops.

A second resolution would therefore be needed to set out a permanent cease-fire that all combatants could accept while also authorizing an international force in southern Lebanon.

A key issue is whether all sides would accept a truce in the three-week old war between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah that has killed more than 600 Lebanese and 55 Israelis.

Another key question is whether the rest of the 15-nation council would line up behind the major Western powers.

The other two permanent council members with veto power - Russia, which has close ties to Syria, and China - have not yet been involved in the negotiations.

"The first resolution is stop the fighting and ... the second resolution deals with the issues of a force and a longer-term border security," said Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy U.N. secretary-general. Putrajaya, United Nation, Thursday, Reuters, Afp