— United Nations Undersecretary General Brian Urquhart conferred today with Premier Menachem Begin and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir on the situation in Lebanon but remained non-comittal as to what measures should be taken to end the fighting in that country. He and Begin agreed on the urgent need for a durable cease-fire. The UN diplomat made no formal requests of Israel nor did he raise the question of Israel’s pre-emptive strikes against terrorist targets in south-Lebanon.
Urquhart was sent to the region by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim before the latest eruption of fighting between Syrian forces and Lebanese Christians in Beirut and Zahle village. He visited Beirut and spent two days with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) before coming to Israel.
He told reporters here that he brought no specific proposals but that he and the Israeli leaders had discussed the French suggestion to create an international peacekeeping force as a buffer between the opposing sides in Lebanon.
Urquhart did not appear enthusiastic about the French proposal. “It is not a new idea by any
manner or means,” he said. “It has been bandied about by a number of parties over a period of years, to my knowledge. We certainly discussed that and the possibilities, but I think it is very premature–we covered the whole problem,” Urquhart said without further elaboration.
UN OFFICIAL SUGGESTS QUIET DIPLOMACY
According to aides, Begin had stressed to the UN emissary that the Syrians who head the all-Arab “peacekeeping” force that entered Lebanon to end the civil war in 1976 are not peacekeepers but “bloody killers who were slaughtering Christians in Lebanon.” Shamir told Urquhart that he should seek the expulsion of the Syrians and the Palestinian terrorists from Lebanon. Urquhart replied that the only way to reach a peaceful solution was through quiet diplomacy “not through confrontation.”
He said the recent tension between UNIFIL and the Christian forces in south Lebanon led by Maj. Saad Haddad seems to have abated and similarly, the tension between Israel and UNIFIL. He expressed confidence in UNIFIL commander Gen. William Callaghan of Ireland who, he said, “is doing an excellent job that is well understood by all the people he deals with and I think that is certainly true of the Israeli authorities.”
Begin assured Urquhart that Israel would do all it could to ensure the safety of UNIFIL personnel but added that he expected UNIFIL to prevent terrorists in Lebanon from attacking Israel.
Meanwhile, Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Zipori met in Jerusalem today with Gen. Emmanuel Erskine, former commander of UNIFIL and presently commander of all UN peacekeeping forces in the Middle East and a personal representative of Waldheim. Aides said they discussed the situation in south Lebanon, Zahle and Beirut. Both stressed, after the meeting, that there has been a marked improvement in cooperation between UNIFIL and all elements operating in south Lebanon.
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