Paris marks distance with Washington over Mideast conflicts

French President Jacques Chirac reiterated Sunday his call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and rejected all initiatives in favor of sending an international force before the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, France handed over to the United Nations Security Council a plan to ask for the immediate ending of violence in the Mideast after the Israeli airstrikes on Sunday morning in the Lebanese village of Qana, which killed at least 51 dead, including 22 children.

Chirac condemned Sunday the Israeli bombing of Qana as "an unjustified action that shows more than ever before the necessity to reach to an immediate ceasefire".

He called jointly with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi for a "reaction" by the UN Security Council to the deadly air raid on the village of Qana.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Sunday that the Qana tragedy would have not happened if people had listened to what the French had said for days.

"What differs between us and our American partners is that we ask since the beginning an immediate ending of hostility, which is the only condition to have negotiation, then a political agreement and thus a durable ceasefire," said Douste-Blazy.

On Saturday he strongly criticized many current initiatives proposed to the UN Security Council to deploy a multinational force to Lebanon, without however having decided the ceasefire.

Washington and London on Friday expressed support for a quick deployment of an international force to Lebanon.

Such a force, according to the French minister, cannot be really efficient when a ceasefire doesn't exist.

Douste-Blazy even cited Saturday the example of Iraq, noting that by force or by escalation of violence people can go nowhere, especially in the region of the Mideast.

According to the French minister, the difference between Paris and Washington is the way to obtain the disarmament of the Hezbollah.

Source: Xinhua