Tel Aviv seeks Ankara’s help

Israel wants Turkey to stop Iran from using Turkish territory to send arms to Hezbollah

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul (left) meets with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (right) at Government House, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel wants the Turkish military to impose an air and ground embargo to prevent Iran from using Turkish territory to send arms to resupply Hezbollah, a senior Israeli security source said yesterday.

Israeli intelligence believes that nearly all of the heavy weapons that Iran has provided to Hezbollah passed through Turkish ground or air space en route to Syria and then Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, security sources said.

A UN-brokered truce to end a month of fighting between Israel and the Lebanese guerrillas went into effect on Monday.

The UN resolution called for an arms embargo against Hezbollah, which fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, but did not spell out how it would be enforced.

The sources said Turkey was key because alternative arms shipment routes through Iraq and Jordan have been blocked. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because talks with the Turkish government were just getting under way.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev declined to comment specifically on the role that might be played by Turkey, a NATO member which maintains good ties with both Israel and Arab states.

But Regev said, “Successful implementation of the international arms embargo is the litmus test of the success of the UN effort in Lebanon.”

Turkish officials had no immediate comment.

Israeli sources said at least two Iranian planes have been forced to land in Turkey in recent weeks after Israel told the Turkish military that they were carrying arms for Hezbollah. The Hurriyet newspaper in Turkey said the planes were searched and no weapons were found.

Israel believes arms, including long-range rockets, have traveled across Turkish territory to Syria, before being shipped by land, sea or air to Lebanon, the sources said. “We are urging Turkey to take all possible steps to prevent the transfer of arms from Iran to Syria to resupply Hezbollah,” a senior Israeli security source said. “The very future of the embargo rests on (Turkey’s) shoulders.”

Amman has already barred Iranian shipments from passing through Jordanian air space, Israeli security sources said. Western diplomats said US forces are preventing Iranian shipments from passing through Iraq.

“We may be facing in the next few days a Syrian attempt to resupply Hezbollah with rockets. What do we do? If we allow it to go in, this will be a defeat for Israel,” an Israeli security source said.

Israeli officials have said the army will be entitled to use force if necessary to prevent arms convoys from entering Lebanon despite the ceasefire.

Israeli officials said such operations, which could include air strikes, are “defensive” in nature and therefore permissible under the UN Security Council resolution that called for Israel to halt “all offensive military operations.”

Turkey is expected to commit troops to a UN force in Lebanon which Israel hopes will help enforce the arms embargo.

Muslim Turkey has the second-biggest army in NATO and has long experience of peacekeeping from Afghanistan to Kosovo.

Israeli officials estimated that between 75 percent and 80 percent of Hezbollah’s long-range rockets have been destroyed, though some Western diplomats were skeptical of the initial Israeli damage assessments.

The Iranian-supplied Zelzal-2 missiles have been Israel’s main strategic concern. They have a range of 210 km (130 miles), putting the Israeli commercial capital Tel Aviv within reach.

NICOSIA (AFP) - Cyprus said yesterday it had offered the use of the island’s ports and airports to help speed up the deployment of thousands of extra UN peacekeepers to nearby Lebanon to shore up a four-day-old truce.

“Cyprus puts its entire infrastructure at the disposal of the EU and the United Nations for the transport to Lebanon of troops and equipment,” government spokesman Christodoulos Pasiardis told reporters.

The offer was made in letters to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and to Finland, the current holder of the 25-member bloc’s rotating presidency. The spokesman did not elaborate on the facilities that had been offered but the Simerini newspaper said that they included the Andreas Papandreou Air Base near the western resort of Paphos.

The island also has two civilian airports at Paphos and the south coast resort of Larnaca, as well as ports at Larnaca and the island’s second city of Limassol.

Cyprus already served as the main staging post for the evacuation of tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Lebanon during the monthlong Israeli offensive which ended with a UN-brokered truce on Monday.

Some 60,000 evacuees passed through the Mediterranean island.

Cyprus Foreign Minister Giorgos Lillikas is to visit Beirut on August 24 for talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

The island has also offered to contribute two officers from the National Guard to the expanded UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

The Greek-Cypriot force has never previously taken part in UN peacekeeping operations amid the island’s 32-year-old division.