Italian Premier Romano Prodi said on Tuesday that obtaining a ceasefire would be the main goal of international crisis talks on Lebanon to be held in Rome on Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference here, Prodi said that "the aim of this summit is to directly tackle the fundamental problems".
He listed these as: securing a ceasefire, deploying a United Nations-led buffer force in southern Lebanon and addressing the humanitarian crisis created by the conflict between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The centre-left leader added that the media had failed to give much coverage to the refugee crisis, which he said had reached "dramatic proportions".
He also stressed the importance of the buffer force, arguing that this would "provide a basic level of long-term security both for the Israeli frontier and the state of Lebanon".
The Rome summit will bring together ministers from 13 countries (Italy, the US, Lebanon, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, Finland, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey) plus representatives from the UN, the World Bank and the European Union.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will be present along with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is currently holding a round of talks in the Middle East. Annan said on Monday that he would seek an end to hostilities at the Rome talks as well as an accord on the buffer force.
Rice has indicated that Washington wants a solution that addresses the root causes of the conflict, for which it blames Hezbollah.
Rice, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday, is pushing for a ceasefire deal which would include the release of captured Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah's withdrawal from along the Israeli border and the deployment of UN forces in the region.
On Monday, she made a surprise visit to the Lebanese capital of Beirut where she held talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who is also close to Syria.
Siniora is appealing for an immediate ceasefire while Berri says there should first be a truce followed by talks on conditions.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Tuesday that Israel was ready for a ceasefire providing certain conditions were met.
In an interview published in Corriere della Sera, Italy's biggest daily, Livni said that "we are ready for an immediate ceasefire providing Hezbollah positions are dismantled and the frontier (between Israel and Lebanon) re-established.
"A ceasefire which would allow Syria and Iran to rearm Hezbollah and Hezbollah to re-position itself and resume the violence would be pointless".
Livni also said Israel wanted the Rome conference to condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist group, something which Europe has been reluctant to do.
"There are those who think that Hezbollah can become a political party, that it will disarm. We'll see. In the meantime, it would be best if the meeting in Rome condemned Hezbollah as a group of jihadist terrorists, as the US believes," she said.
"What we want from Rome above all is a sign that the situation has changed and that the world will no longer accept a weak Lebanese government blackmailed by a Hezbollah armed with missiles," Livni concluded. The conflict was triggered by a deadly incursion into Israeli territory on July 12 by Hezbollah. At least 400 people in Lebanon and more than 40 in Israel have died.
Siniora said in a televised address last week that more than 500,000 people had been displaced by the war and appealed for international help.
