ARABS-UN - June 2 - Lebanon Voices Reservation on Border Deal.

After talks with top Lebanese officials, UN envoy Terje Roed Larsen says he was close to an agreement with Lebanon over the marking of its border with Israel. But the Lebanese government responds quickly by voicing reservations and playing down Larsen's upbeat remarks. Larsen says after 3 hours of talks with Pres. Lahoud and PM Selim Al Hoss: "We have by and large reached an agreement on all relevant issues related to the implementation of Resolution 425". An official Lebanese statement says: "Lebanon expressed reservations on the UN view related to defining 3 positions between Rmaish and Metulla [in the central sector], in addition to verifying the Israeli withdrawal from the eastern sector of the border". (Agreement would remove a major hurdle to UN verification that Israel's pull-out from south Lebanon during last week was completed in line with Security Council Resolution 425 - a key condition for Lebanon to deploy its forces in the volatile region.) Larsen says: "The atmosphere of the talks are very open, very constructive and conducted in a warm atmosphere".

Larsen then meets ambassadors of the 5 permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Britain, France, China and Russia. The Lebanese statement says the government urged the UN to deal with the issue of the disputed Shebaa Farms near the Syrian Golan Heights "in accordance with the fundamental Lebanese position". (A UN report has said Shebaa Farms - a plateau on the foot of the Golan Heights seized by Israel in 1967 - was not included in Resolution 425.) The statement says Lebanon also asked the UN to oblige Israel to release all Lebanese prisoners held in its jails and to return the corpses of guerrillas killed in attacks against Israel. It adds: "The meeting ended by agreeing that the UN team present a proposal on the pending points". (The envoy had spent most of the day overseeing field work by UN and Lebanese cartographers along the border.) On May 31, Beirut accused the UN team of forcing Lebanon to give up claims to land near the border it said was still occupied by Israel. As Larsen meets Lebanese leaders, Hizbollah chief Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah warns the UN against pressuring Lebanon into giving up some of its border territory. Nasrallah tells a rally in Beirut: "Lebanon is being subjected to hidden and visible pressure. There is a smell of bias from the concerned side at the UN toward the Israelis on the issue of border marking". (The frontier is currently under the control of Hizbollah, which drove Israel into withdrawing from Lebanon.) Nasrallah says: "We in the Islamic Resistance are monitoring carefully what happening on the issue of borders. We and everyone in Lebanon cannot give up on one inch of our Lebanese land and cannot accept that occupation remains on our soil". Nasrallah reiterates armed resistance against Israel would continue if it did not hand back the Shebaa Farms. He says: "Even if someone comes and says Israel has carried out 425, as long as there is occupation to one inch of Lebanese land there will be resistance".