Italian presidency of the European Union condemns Hizbullah party
Lebanon-European Union, Politics, 8/13/2003

The Italian Presidency of the European Union has responded to Israeli demands yesterday and "strongly" condemned the Hizbullah party launching of anti aircraft missiles in retaliation of the Israeli violations of the Lebanese airspace, which resulted in killing one Israeli settler on Monday.

Hours following an announcement made by the Israeli foreign minister that he had made contacts with European officials to urge them to pressure Hizbullah, the Italian Presidency of the European Union announced in a statement circulated in Brussels that "the Union calls on Lebanon and other effective sides in the region to practice all pressure to prevent the occurrence of other attacks by Hizbullah against Israeli targets." The European Union called "all sides to practice utmost degrees of self control in order to avoid the deterioration of the condition." A matter which might obstruct the implementation of the roadmap, according to the statement.

Both the Israeli President Moshe Katsav and the foreign minister Shalom Silvan called on the Europeans to interfere to pressure Hizbullah. Katsav said "the Europeans should do like the US, Canada, and Australia and use their influence so as Hizbullah would stop its attacks,"against Israel. He added that "thanks to the policy of self restraint, Israel is doing its best to defend the people in the north." For his part, Silvan said he had made contacts with officials in each of Germany, Spain and Denmark. He added "we have also got a French answer asking them to pressure on sides supporting Hizbullah in Syria, Iran and Lebanon in order to stop its escalations."

Previous Stories:
  EU-ME special envoy in Lebanon   (8/4/2003)
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