Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-secretary-of-state-rice-hopes-for-u-n-resolution-by-weeks-end Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Pressure mounted Tuesday after the European Union called for an immediate end to fighting in Lebanon while the Israeli cabinet voted to expand its ground offensive. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses U.S. efforts to end the conflict. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: Secretary Rice, welcome to the program.CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. Secretary of State: Thank you. Nice to be with you. RAY SUAREZ: Just a few minutes ago, the deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, was on our program. He said he anticipates Israeli forces being in southern Lebanon for weeks to come. Is the United States ready to support Israel for that long, given the momentum of events? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, the diplomacy is moving ahead. During the time that I was in the Middle East, I had a lot of very fruitful conversations with both the Lebanese and with the Israelis on what it would take to end this conflict on a basis that would not permit a return to the status quo ante.The last thing that we want to do is to have an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah across the blue line and to have, several months from now, a situation in which they can do that again.And so the discussions we've had are about moving the Lebanese armed forces to the south to fill this vacuum that Hezbollah has been using, to extend the authority of the Lebanese government, and to do several other things that would make it impossible to return to the status quo ante. When we've got those conditions in place or when we know that a resolution is, in fact, going to support those conditions, I think we should move for a cease-fire. RAY SUAREZ: When you were leaving the Middle East, you said an urgent cease-fire and a lasting settlement, you were convinced we could achieve both this week. Is that still in the cards? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I still believe that if we really put our minds to it and work that this week is entirely possible. Certainly, we're talking about days, not weeks, before we are able to get a cease-fire.It's time to end the violence, but the reason that the United States has talked about an urgent cease-fire, but one that cannot lead to a return to the status quo ante, so the Middle East has been through far too many of these spasms. And we've had littered — the region is just littered with broken cease-fires.And so this time we have to try to put together a program, put together institutions that will prevent this from happening again. And I think we can certainly have the elements in any resolution that will tell us the roadmap ahead to do that.