UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, visiting devastated south Lebanon, yesterday urged Israel and Hezbollah to move swiftly to settle disputes blocking a permanent ceasefire.

He listed as "serious irritants" the fate of two Israeli soldiers snatched by Hezbollah and that of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, as well as an Israeli air and sea blockade of Lebanon imposed at the start of the war nearly seven weeks ago.

Annan, who later flew to Israel by helicopter on the second leg of his Middle East tour, was due to meet Defence Minister Amir Peretz and the families of the soldiers at 1530 GMT.

"We need to resolve the issue of the abducted soldiers very quickly. Obviously the issue of the (Lebanese) prisoners... will also have to be dealt with," he said in Naqoura, the main base of the current 2,000-strong UN force in Lebanon.

Annan again called on Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon, which he said the Lebanese saw as a "humiliation and infringement of their sovereignty," while stressing the need for the Beirut government to exert control over its borders.

Israel has refused to lift the blockade, citing the need to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah, whose capture of the Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12 sparked the war.

Annan is trying to secure full implementation of a Security Council resolution that halted the fighting on August 14 and mandated up to 15,000 UN troops to deploy in the south.

Italy's first contingent of 800 troops, out of an eventual 3,000 pledged, yesterday set sail on what Rome said would be a "long and risky" mission. The aircraft carrier Garibaldi and four other Italian Navy ships are due to reach Lebanon by Friday.

Hezbollah 'not purely terrorists'

Italy's troops setting sail for Lebanon comes as the Italian foreign minister controversially said groups such as Lebanese guerrillas Hezbollah and Palestinian militants Hamas are not purely terrorist organizations and that efforts to bring them into the political fold should be encouraged.

"Hamas and Hezbollah are not al-Qaida," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview with Corriere della Sera published yesterday.

"Besides their well-known responsibilities for terrorist actions, they have a political side, they are engaged in assistance.

"The IRA and ETA have become political movements from (being) terror groups," D'Alema said, referring to groups that have carried out terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland, Britain and Spain. "We must encourage this metamorphosis in the Middle East," he said.

"Instead, organizations that are purely dedicated to terror must be fought and defeated," he added.

His remarks will come as a sting to the US, which lists both Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.

They also contradicted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni who said yesterday: "In my eyes, an organization that supports terror cannot be part of a political system these organizations use democracy to spread their antidemocratic ideas."

Source: China Daily