(AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking a United Nations Security Council resolution by next week to defuse the Middle East conflict.
"We are not the only players in this but we believe what we should be working towards is a UN resolution as early as possibly next week. We believe that others (France, Germany) are roughly in the same ballpark," his spokesman said Friday, reports Trend.
The spokesman, speaking aboard the prime minister's plane bound for Washington from London, said efforts to solve the two-week conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas were increasingly urgent.
"We want to accelerate the discussions that are going on amongst the international community about identifying those who would serve in a stabilisation force and increase the tempo of putting that stabilisation force together," he said.
"We also want to identify the practical steps that are necessary to allow the Lebanese government to extend its authority over all of Lebanon and make UN resolution 1559 a reality," the spokesman told reporters.
The resolution calls for the extention of the Lebanese government's authority to the whole of the country, including the border with Israel, and the disbanding of private militias such as Hezbollah.
The spokesman added: "Clearly also we want to identify the means to de-escalate the problems in Gaza and resume the process of the roadmap."
The roadmap drafted by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations outlines steps toward establishing a viable Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
Blair's spokesman gave no details about what kind of UN resolution Britain sought but the Guardian newspaper said the draft peace deal involves two phases.
"In the first, Israel and Lebanon would agree a ceasefire and a small multinational force would be deployed on the border, allowing Israeli troops to withdraw," it said.
A much larger force of between 10,000 and 20,000 troops would then move in under UN resolution 1559, it said.
A British official said the two-phase idea was raised by Britain at Wednesday's international conference in Rome and "the US are almost certainly going to push something through next week," the Guardian reported.
The conflict erupted on July 12 after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others, triggering massive Israeli retaliation.