MOSCOW. July 19 (Interfax-AVN) - A United Nations peacekeeping contingent should be deployed to the Israeli-Lebanese conflict zone in order to prevent other nations from being drawn into the conflict, Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Yevgeny Primakov said.
"I think this is now a full-scale war [between Israel and Lebanon]," Primakov said at a press conference in Moscow.
"I fear that other countries may get involved in this war," he said.
Israeli troops are destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon, rather than of Hezbollah, he said, adding that 200 civilians have died in the operation, while only some ten Hezbollah militants have been eliminated.
The fact that all Western countries are evacuating their citizens from Lebanon is alarming, Primakov said. "This means that they are awaiting a major war, otherwise there would not be such a full-scale evacuation," he said.
Another alarming sign is U.S. President George Bush's recent statement that "the world should attend to Hezbollah and Syria and maintain Iran's isolation," he said. The deployment of UN peacekeepers may prevent the conflict from escalating.
"I think that the deployment of UN peacekeepers is required to separate the parties and to create conditions for talks," Primakov said.