Australian FM warns of UN 'suicide mission' to Lebanon

AFP | July 27 2006

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said sending UN peacekeepers to Lebanon without a lasting ceasefire in the Middle East conflict would be a "suicide mission."

But Downer, in Kuala Lumpur for a regional foreign ministers meeting, said that Australia would not withdraw its UN observers from the troubled region.

"Well I think there is no point in sending an international peacekeeping mission on a suicide mission," Downer said when asked about the prospects of UN peacekeepers going to Lebanon.

Israel attracted global condemnation for an attack on an observation post at Khiam in southern Lebanon on Tuesday that killed military observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.

International talks in Rome failed to agree a truce in the two-week-old fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah militia.

Downer said UN peacekeepers could be deployed if Hezbollah withdrew from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese government took over control of the region which has come under fierce attack from Israel.

"Without that you do not have the makings of a peace settlement. Only in the environment of a peace settlement that you can send peacekeepers otherwise you are going to send them into the path of destruction," he said.

"Certainly there is no point in putting international personnel in harm's way."

Downer said a ceasefire could only happen when Hezbollah stops firing missiles into Israel and Lebanese government takes control over southern Lebanon from the militia.

"In the situation where Hezbollah are firing missiles from southern Lebanon into Israel, it is not realistic to accept that Israelis will just sit in their villages and towns and receive their missiles and die," he said.

Australia said Thursday it had withdrawn troops helping evacuate its citizens in southern Lebanon because the situation in the area is too dangerous.

Downer also said that Australia would not pull out its UN observers from southern Lebanon.

"We are not. We have very few members of the United National force in southern Lebanon. They will simply operate consistent with the decisions made by the United Nations. The Australian government is not dictating to them," he said.

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