Paris Denies Drafting Resolution against Hizbullah, Says 'Plotting' for Lebanon's Security
French Ambassador Patrice Paoli has denied that Paris was drafting a U.N. Security Council Resolution against Hizbullah as a top official in New York warned that the situation in the border area between Lebanon and Israel remains “very fragile.”
France “calls for the protection of Lebanon's sovereignty, its territorial integrity and Resolution 1701,” Paoli said in remarks published in An Nahar daily on Friday.
“There is no conspiracy against anyone. We are plotting to consolidate Lebanon's security,” he added when he was asked about claims that France had been drafting a resolution to condemn the latest Hizbullah attack on Israeli soldiers.
A Security Council diplomat said Russia blocked on Tuesday a French-drafted statement which would have condemned the Hizbullah attack on the Israeli troops near the Shebaa Farms area last week as a violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between the two sides.
But the Council only condemned "in the strongest terms" the killing of a Spanish peacekeeper in southern Lebanon and decided to set up a board of inquiry to investigate his death.
Cpl. Francisco Javier Soria Toledo was killed during the Israeli military's exchange of fire with Hizbullah after its attack on the troops.
A top U.N. official warned that the situation in the border area remains “very fragile.”
In remarks to An Nahar, the official expected the result of the investigation into the peacekeeper's murder to appear within the coming hours.
“The aim of the probe is to know who opened fire, when and how,” said the official.
Spain's U.N. ambassador Roman Oyarzun has blamed Israel for the peacekeeper's death.
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