U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan held talks in Iran on Saturday to seek help in shoring up a Hezbollah-Israel cease-fire and other issues that diplomats said would include Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.
Annan arrived in the Iranian capital two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported Tehran had failed to meet the U.N. Security Council’s August 31 deadline to halt uranium enrichment.
“I am here to discuss implementation of resolution 1701, which deals with the situation in Lebanon, and I will also discuss issues of concern in this region to the international community,” Annan told reporters shortly before heading into talks with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for Annan who has been on a week-long Middle East trip to bolster the Hezbollah-Israel truce, earlier told Reuters: “Certainly the issue of the (Iranian) nuclear program will be visited.”
Iran is one of the main backers of the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group, and Annan is expected to urge a commitment to a ban on exporting arms to the guerillas as demanded by the U.N. Security Council resolution that ushered in the August 14 truce.
Help with release of Israeli soldiers?
Annan may also seek to enlist Iran’s help in securing the release of two Israeli soldiers seized on July 12 in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah. That raid sparked the war that killed more than 1,300 people, mostly Lebanese civilians.
Although Iran funded and armed Hezbollah in the 1980s, it now says its support is primarily moral and political. But analysts say Hezbollah is equipped with Iranian arms and used them in the 34-day war against Israel.
Annan has already visited Lebanon, Israel, Syria, another Hezbollah ally, and Qatar, the only Arab state currently with a seat on the U.N. Security Council. In Damascus, Annan said Syria promised to enforce the arms embargo on Hezbollah.
Before Annan began his tour, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “It is clear that Iran has an influence on certain parts of Lebanese society, and we would hope to use that influence positively.”
As well as the foreign minister, Annan is due to meet the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, on Saturday and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday.
Analysts say Iran may have been emboldened in its nuclear standoff by the Lebanon conflict, which Tehran declared a victory for Hezbollah. Iran insists its atomic plans are civilian but the West says it wants to build nuclear bombs.
Peacekeepers
More than 250 Italian troops from an advance party of 800 landed in the south Lebanese port of Tyre on Saturday. They form part of U.N. plans to increase the existing 2,000 peacekeepers in Lebanon to 15,000 to help enforce the cease-fire.
Italy has pledged to send 3,000, which will be the biggest contingent in the new U.N. force, known as UNIFIL II.
Annan has said Israeli forces who moved into south Lebanon during the war with Hezbollah should withdraw fully as soon as 5,000 U.N. troops have arrived.
The French commander of UNIFIL, Major-General Alain Pellegrini, told reporters in Tyre he expected to have the 5,000 troops on the ground within two weeks and said the expanded force would have greater powers to enforce the truce.
The truce has so far held with few violations other than flights over Lebanon by Israeli planes, defying widespread expectations of intermittent violence.
Last November, Annan canceled a trip to Tehran in response to a call by Ahmadinejad that Israel “be wiped off the map.” A U.N. official said Annan last visited Iran in 2002. Ahmadinejad was elected president last year.
The American Jewish Committee has urged Annan to speak out against Iran’s Holocaust cartoon exhibition when in Tehran. An Iranian newspaper launched the competition in retaliation for last year’s publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers.
Annan will return to Doha from Tehran for talks with Qatari officials about implementation of the Security Council resolution to cement the Hezbollah-Israel truce.
