The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of illicit arms deliveries to Hezbollah guerrillas, during a session of the United Nations Security Council, endorsing charges by Israel following its seizure of a ship in the Mediterranean last week.
The Antigua-flagged ship, which was commandeered and later released by Israeli forces, was found to be carrying hundreds of tons of weapons disguised as civilian cargo.
Britain also raised concerns over the arms shipment, which Israel argued contained Iranian-supplied arms intended to be sent via Syria to the Shi'ite Hezbollah group that has fought Israel.
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Syria's UN ambassador dismissed the Israeli charges as an "outrageous concoction of lies" and accused the Jewish state of an act of piracy in seizing the Francop. Syria and Iran, neither of which currently holds a seat on the council, had already denied the allegations.
UN diplomats said no immediate action on the matter was expected from the full council, but that it would likely be referred to a council committee charged with monitoring compliance with a council resolution that bans Iranian arms exports.
Israel filed a formal complaint with the UN last week over the shipment, after Israeli officials said they had found enough weapons, including rockets, to supply Hezbollah for a month of fighting. They were stored in at least 40 containers headed to Syria from Egypt, the officials said.
The incident was raised by U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff at a closed-door Security Council meeting discussing developments in Lebanon since a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, diplomats said.
"The November 4 discovery of a concealed arms shipment in commercial shipping containers, clearly manifested from Iran to Syria in violation of Resolution 1747, provides unambiguous evidence of the destabilizing proliferation of arms in the region," a U.S. official said, summarizing the U.S. address.
Britain's deputy ambassador said he too had raised London's "very serious concern" about the affair, but was more guarded about Iranian involvement, saying only there was a "suggestion that Iran has been caught illegally exporting weapons."
Britain was awaiting further information and could not yet confirm details of the Israeli allegations, envoy Philip Parham told reporters.
Syrian Ambassador Bashar al-Ja'afari flatly denied the allegations. "The act perpetrated by the Israelis is an act of piracy on the high seas and the Israelis should be held accountable," he told reporters outside the council chamber.
"I think - and many people think with me, with Syria - that all these are (the) usual Israeli outrageous concoction of lies to justify their act of piracy."
Ja'afari and Lebanese envoy Caroline Ziadeh also criticized the latest report on Lebanon by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for underplaying Israeli violations of UN resolutions such as surveillance overflights of Lebanon, and focusing more on cross-border shooting by Lebanese guerrillas.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday welcomed the newly formed government in Lebanon and a UN official said the ceasefire in the south was holding "remarkably well" despite repeated violations from both sides.
Michael Williams, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, briefed the council on the implementation of Resolution 1701, which ordered a ceasefire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon in 2006.
"The UN looks forward to working with the new government in addressing the challenges and fulfilling Resolution 1701," Williams said.
"But obviously more needs to be done to safeguard what has been achieved in the past three years," Williams said.
Williams denounced the almost daily incidences of violations by sea or land of the ceasefire, citing rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel and the Israeli jet-fighter swoops that violated Lebanese sovereign airspace.
Williams said the UN has condemned the flights and Hezbollah's attacks against Israel. He cited also the maintenance of weapons depots in southern Lebanon as ceasefire violations.
He said the cease-fire violations are "cause for concern and raise the specter of a potential escalation" of the fighting.
Williams called for a permanent ceasefire.
"The cessation of hostilities has held remarkably well and I think it's a tribute to UN Interim Forces in Lebanon, and obviously to Lebanon and Israel," he said.
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