Hizbollah expects a United Nations "mediator" to visit Lebanon next week to try to secure a deal for the release of two Israeli soldiers it captured in July, the group's leader said in remarks aired yesterday.
"He was supposed to come late last week and he is expected to come next week, but negotiations have not yet started," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera television.
He said the envoy was European but gave no further details.
Hizbollah's capture of the two soldiers in a cross-border raid triggered the 34-day war between Israel and the Shia Muslim group. Hizbollah wants to swap the Israeli captives for Lebanese held in Israeli jails.
Nasrallah told Jazeera no deal would be possible without the release of Samir Qantar, the longest held Lebanese prisoner in Israel. "You ask me will there be a deal without Samir, I say no," he said. "Absolutely not".
Qantar was captured during an attack in 1979 on northern Israel by a Palestinian guerrilla group in which an Israeli policeman, another man and his four-year-old daughter were killed.
The preamble of Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the war calls for the unconditional release of the two Israelis captured by Hizbollah on July 12th. It "encourages" settling the Lebanese prisoner issue.
The resolution also calls for the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, which the guerrillas had controlled since Israeli forces withdrew in 2000, and the expansion of a UN peacekeeping force.