Powell seeks regional backing in Beirut
US Secretary of State Colin Powell today made a quick trip to Lebanon seeking support for a crackdown on guerrillas who have been attacking Israel from the southern part of the country.
Powell is also discussing the growing possibility of an international Mideast peace summit, an idea proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The two talked about it yesterday in Tel Aviv, but a US official travelling with the secretary said the idea is still at a very early stage.
Powell is urging both Lebanon and Syria to restrain Hezbollah guerrillas whose cross-border attacks on Israel are causing growing international concern.
Meanwhile, senior American officials will meet Palestinians close to Yasser Arafat to discuss how to advance peace efforts.
Powell is struggling to persuade Sharon to pull his forces from the West Bank and Palestinian leader Arafat to curb violence.
Progress is slow on both fronts, and Powell may extend his Middle East trip a few days longer.
In Beirut, Powell is due to meet Lebanese leaders. He then plans to Damascus to see Syrian President Bashar Assad.
While he is asking them to curb Hezbollah, they are likely - as other Arab leaders have - to push him to pressure Israel to end its West Bank offensive.
But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the situation along the border between Israel and Lebanon was also of ‘‘urgent and serious concern’’.
The State Department has branded Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and has asked Iran, through intermediaries, as well as Syria and Lebanon to clamp down on them.
Despite Powell’s diplomatic efforts in Beirut today, Lebanon will tell him that cross-border attacks are likely to continue, a senior Lebanese official said.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi accused Washington of being indifferent to the killing and suffering in the Palestinian territories and to the prospect of that conflict’s escalating into a regional war.
‘‘For the Americans, it is no problem if the region descends into chaos and destruction, sees mass massacres, mass annihilation, an Israeli holocaust against the Palestinians, Nazism, fascism, terrorism, detention camps, expulsions, killings, displacement of people, starving and depriving people of water,’’ Aridi told Lebanon’s Future television.
