Livni urges other nations to pressure Saniora

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged nations to press the Lebanese prime minister to work for the release of two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah, stressing in an interview broadcast Tuesday that their release should be unconditional. "The demand in the UN Security Council was for an immediate, unconditional release of the soldiers, and those are our expectations too," Tzipi Livni said on Germany's ZDF television. "At the moment, we expect from everyone, naturally including Germany, that they turn to Lebanese Prime Minister (Fuad) Saniora and call on him to take responsibility and take care of freeing the kidnapped soldiers," added Livni, who spoke through an interpreter. The minister also stressed the need for Hizbullah to be disarmed, and added that "in my eyes, an organization that supports terror cannot be part of a political system - these organizations use democracy to spread their antidemocratic ideas." "If Hizbullah were really to take the decision to lay down its weapons and stopped representing this extremist Iranian ideology, the destruction of Israel, then they could be part of the political system in Lebanon," Livni said.