UN Secretary General to issue updated report on UNSCR 1701

B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, to the Security Council

UN - 14- March 2007
 
On Lebanon, he said that there had been several important developments since the Council had last been briefed.  Opposition demonstrations that had begun in Beirut in December had continued to occur in a calm and orderly manner and without major incidents.  Regional efforts to broker a solution to the political impasse were becoming more intense in the lead up to the Arab League Summit on 28 March, resulting in a general atmosphere of cautious optimism.  He said that the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, and the leader of the Future Movement, Saad Hariri, had met three times in recent days to bridge the gap between the Government and the opposition.

 

In contrast, there had been a "worrying increase" in the number of security threats and bomb scares reported in Lebanon over the past four weeks, he said, adding that Lebanese security forces had discovered several explosive devices in Beirut, in populated areas outside the capital and throughout the country.  While a number of those explosives were not primed to detonate; on one occasion, detonators linked to chemical substances had been discovered.

 

Turning to the situation in southern Lebanon, he said that the past month had been relatively calm along the "Blue Line", although, regrettably, Israeli violations of that border continued.  For instance, Israeli planes had violated Lebanese airspace on 21 February, drawing anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army in response. In addition, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was conducting an investigation into a Blue Line violation that had taken place earlier this month when a Lebanese youth was forced by Israeli soldiers to cross the Blue Line and the technical fence into the Israeli side.  The findings of that investigation would be communicated to both sides.

 

He said that the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Situation in the Middle East, Michael Williams, had travelled to Israel and Lebanon in late February to prepare for the Secretary-General's next quarterly report on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006).  That report would be submitted to the Council on 16 March.

 
Source: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc8969.doc.htm