Annan Urges Release Of Captured Israelis

BEIRUT, Aug. 28 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Lebanese leaders Monday to work for the swift release of two Israeli soldiers held captive, saying their return home was imperative to stabilize a two-week-old cease-fire on the border with Israel.

Annan said he was working to persuade Israel to lift the air and sea blockade of Lebanon and complete a military withdrawal from the southern border zone, two key Lebanese demands. But he said Lebanon had its own obligations under the Security Council resolution that ended 33 days of warfare, in particular the release of the prisoners.

"It is a fixed menu," he said of the cease-fire resolution. "It is not a buffet where you can take what you want."

The reminder from Annan, who is on a two-day visit to this battle-scarred country, dramatized the difficulty of trying to reach all the goals outlined in the U.N. resolution. Although the resolution makes Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his government responsible for the two soldiers' fates, they are held by Hezbollah, the militant Shiite Muslim movement that is part of the government but independent in its decisions.

The Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said in a televised interview Sunday evening that U.N. and Italian officials had initiated contacts to try to arrange a prisoner exchange with Israel. He did not reveal whether the contacts had produced any fruit. But Hezbollah officials said arranging such an exchange was the main reason they staged the July 12 raid during which the two soldiers were seized -- and which set off the war.

Annan said that the two soldiers should be turned over to the International Committee of the Red Cross and that the United Nations would be ready to play whatever role was asked of it. "We must also address the issue of all the other prisoners," he added, referring to the Lebanese held by Israel whose release is demanded by Hezbollah.

German intelligence officials have arranged such exchanges in the past, and Lebanese officials have expressed confidence that a new exchange could be arranged within a short time. But the final decision on terms, they recognized, rests with the Hezbollah leadership.

Annan also conferred with Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah minister in Siniora's government, and Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and Siniora's conduit for contacts with Nasrallah. Berri, a fellow Shiite and an ally of Hezbollah in parliament, was identified by Nasrallah as the man in charge of contacts for the prisoner swap.

Hezbollah followers booed Annan and Siniora as they toured the badly damaged Dahiya suburbs south of Beirut on Monday evening, waving posters of Nasrallah and causing concern among Annan's security guards as they trotted alongside his vehicle. The protest reflected anger at what many Hezbollah followers -- and other Lebanese -- feel was an unconscionable delay in reaching a cease-fire while Israeli warplanes pounded their neighborhoods.

Annan also promised the swift arrival of European troops to reinforce the U.N. peacekeeping corps along the border. Israel has demanded that foreign peacekeepers be deployed before it will lift the blockade, under which the Israeli military controls air and sea traffic in and out of Lebanon.

The 2,000-member United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, has been in place for 28 years, but it was judged inadequate for the new truce-monitoring mission because of a lack of manpower and a limited mandate. As a result, the U.N. cease-fire agreement stipulated that 15,000 Lebanese army troops be deployed along the border under the aegis of UNIFIL, which would itself be enlarged to a total of about 15,000 troops.

About three brigades of Lebanese soldiers, totaling up to 5,000 men with aging Panhard and M113 armored personnel carriers, have pulled into the border hills and asserted authority in southern Lebanon for the first time in a generation, according to Lebanese officials, and more are on the way. Three soldiers were killed last week while trying to dismantle unexploded Israeli ordnance.