Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Lebanon: UN envoy welcomes Cabinet’s efforts to ease tensions after recent clashes.

22 September 2010 – The United Nations envoy for Lebanon today welcomed a move by the country’s Cabinet to try to end the heated rhetoric of recent weeks and rely upon dialogue to ease tensions that escalated after armed clashes last month between Shi’a and Sunni Muslim groups.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Defence Minister Elias Murr, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said those talks had mainly focused on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah that erupted in 2006.

“We remain conscious of the need to move forward towards a permanent ceasefire as envisaged in the resolution and to end all violations of the resolution, such as Israel’s occupation of the northern part of Ghajar and also the daily over-flights,” he said.

The United Nations has repeatedly called on Israel to expedite the withdrawal of its army from northern Ghajar, a village that straddles the Blue Line between the two countries and has even more frequently condemned almost daily Israeli over-flights of Lebanese territory.