Prime Minister: Israel won't withdraw forces until cease-fire

JERUSALEM -- Israel rejected demands Wednesday from visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that it immediately lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon and withdraw its forces once 5,000 international troops are deployed.\nPrime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated Israel would only lift the blockade and withdraw its soldiers from Lebanon after the full implementation of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.\nAnnan and Israeli officials said they hoped that truce would lead to a full peace accord between Israel and Lebanon.\nHowever, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said in Beirut that Lebanon "will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel."\nAnd a Hezbollah minister in the Lebanese Cabinet said that the guerrilla group will not unconditionally release two Israeli soldiers whose capture set off the conflict, saying they would only be freed in a prisoner exchange.\n"There will be no unconditional release. This is not possible," Minister of Energy and Hydraulic Resources Mohammed Fneish said in Beirut. "There should be an exchange through indirect negotiations. This is the principle to which Hezbollah and the resistance are adhering."\nUnder the U.N.-brokered truce that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and up to 15,000 international troops are to be deployed and enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah. The 2,500 U.N. observers currently monitoring the Israel-Lebanon border have a very limited mandate.\nIsrael has said it would not lift its blockade unless international forces, along with Lebanese troops, are deployed on the Israel-Lebanon border and Lebanon's frontier with Syria to prevent the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.\nSyria has said it would consider the presence of international troops on its border a hostile act, and Lebanon has said it would deploy its own forces there but bar international troops. Annan has backed Lebanon in the dispute.\nThe U.N. chief said that Lebanese authorities assured him they were serious about enforcing the arms embargo on Hezbollah and that Israel's security concerns could be addressed in this way.\n"We need to be flexible, because I don't think there's ever only one way of solving a problem. We shouldn't insist that the only way to do it is by deploying international forces," he said.\nThe lifting of the blockade is necessary for Lebanon's economy to recover from the war and for \nLebanon's government to strengthen.\n"I do believe the blockade should be lifted," Annan said at a news conference with Olmert.\nAsked whether Israel would lift the blockade, Olmert was evasive, saying only that Israel wanted a full implementation of the cease-fire.\nAnnan said he was working to increase the size of the international force in Lebanon "as rapidly as possible" and to double the current number to 5,000 quickly.\n"We hope that as we do that, the Israeli withdrawal (from Lebanon) will continue, and by the time we are at that level, Israel will have fully withdrawn," Annan said.\nOlmert said Israel hoped to pull out from Lebanon "as soon as possible," but he also did not embrace Annan's proposal to pull out all Israeli troops once 5,000 international peacekeepers were in place.