THE United States succeeded yesterday in holding off demands for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, allowing Israel to continue for the time its onslaught against Hezbollah militants in the south of the country.

But pressure for both sides to stop the fighting grew stronger after foreign ministers from the US, Middle East and Europe agreed in Rome on the need for a United Nations-led international military force to be sent to the Middle East to act as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon.

The force is seen as the essential precondition to a stop in the fighting. At the urging of Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, the Rome agreement called on participants to “work immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire which puts an end to the current violence and hostilities”.

It also called on Israel to exercise “utmost restraint”.

The meeting, attended by ministers from 15 countries, the UN and the EU, fell in behind the wishes of Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State. She effectively argued that the ceasefire could not be immediate because it has to be “lasting, permanent and sustainable”, the precise words used in the statement issued by the co-hosts, Italy and the US.

But the failure to demand an immediate ceasefire provoked fury in the Middle East and beyond. Oxfam accused America and Britain of “foot-dragging diplomacy”, which has allowed the killing to continue.

The tensions in the meeting were obvious as the leaders wrangled for two hours over where to put the word “immediately” in the statement.

Arab leaders and many others at the summit had hoped to call for an immediate ceasefire, without preconditions. But Dr Rice insisted that no durable truce could be sought until the conditions were right.

“We have to have a plan that will actually create conditions in which we can have a ceasefire that will be sustainable,” she said.

Dr Rice added that to call for an immediate ceasefire would merely make “a room full of foreign ministers look foolish”.

Tony Blair is likely to keep pressing for a swift-as-possible formation of the international force, arguing that it is a key component of the conditions needed for a ceasefire.

No details were given about the composition of the proposed international force or the timetable for its deployment.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, said that it would operate under a UN mandate, and that discussions in the Security Council on its formation would begin soon.

Diplomats at the conference, held in Italy’s Foreign Ministry and co-chaired by Dr Rice and Massimo D’Alema, the Italian Foreign Minister, denied that the formula agreed was intended to “buy Israel more time”.

Dr Rice argued that there could be “no return to the status quo ante”. There had been too many broken ceasefires in the past, and “too many spasms of violence followed by more spasms of violence”, she said.

Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister, made an impassioned plea to the conference for an immediate end to the fighting. “The more we delay the ceasefire, the more people are being killed,” he said. “We are being pounded every day, cut to pieces. Is the value of human rights in Lebanon less than that of citizens elsewhere?”

The conference was overshadowed by the row over the shelling by Israel of a UN base in southern Lebanon which killed four observers on Tuesday. Mr Annan said that he accepted the “deep regret” offered to him by Ehud Olmert, the Israel Prime Minister, in a telephone call yesterday morning, but stuck to his earlier allegation that the attack had been “apparently deliberate”.

THE STATEMENT

The ministers at yesterday’s meeting:

Pledged to convene an international donor conference to help to revive the Lebanese economy and provide aid, with special emphasis on south Lebanon.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?