Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday discussed over phone with his
Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud a draft UN resolution on continued conflicts
between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria's SANA news agency reported.
The two leaders stressed that "any formula (for a UN resolution)should be
agreed by a Lebanese consensus," SANA said.
Assad also slammed "some powers" for "seeking to secure favorable
circumstances in the interests of Israel to enable it to get political gains
which it failed to win through its aggression," it said.
The phone conversation came while Arab foreign ministers were meeting in
Beirut on the crisis.
A draft UN Security Council resolution agreed upon by France and the United
States on Saturday calls for "full cessation of hostilities" between Israel and
Hezbollah which have been involved in a bloody conflict since July 12, but does
not call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri rejected the draft resolution, saying
that it ignored a seven-point plan put forward by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad
Seniora during an international conference in Rome on July 26 to resolve the
crisis.
The seven-point plan includes an immediate ceasefire, a prisoner swap,
putting the disputed Shebaa Farms under the UN control, sending the Lebanese
army into south Lebanon and expanding a UN peacekeeping force.
Some 900 Lebanese have been killed and a quarter of Lebanon's population
displaced since Israel launched a massive assault on Lebanese Hezbollah in
retaliation for the abduction of two Israeli soldiers.
Meanwhile, 59 Israeli soldiers and 36 civilians have been killed in the
conflict.