BEIRUT Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Saturday that the country rejected any negotiations on a conditional Israeli offer to withdraw from South Lebanon. We stress our rejection of any negotiations on our rights in the framework of Resolution 425, which is an international resolution, Berri told supporters in the South Lebanon town of Shaqra. He was referring to a 1978 United Nations resolution calling for Israel's immediate withdrawal from South Lebanon. Lebanon refuses to enter negotiations with Israel on a pullout, arguing that the 20-year-old resolution, whose acceptance Israel first announced on April 1, requires it to withdraw unconditionally.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday that Israel was serious about accepting the resolution under conditions of international peace and security. Israel occupies a nine-mile-wide (15 km) so-called security zone on the Lebanese side of the border, aided by its South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia allies, to prevent attacks against northern Israel. The United Nations has a 4,460-strong peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon but cannot deploy up to the Lebanon-Israel border because of the security zone.

(Reuter)