Cleric Urges Comprehensive Hostage Deal

Lebanon’s top Shiite Muslim cleric on Sunday urged a onetime swap involving Western captives and Arab prisoners to end the Mideast hostage crisis.

Sheik Mohammed Mehdi Shamseddine also predicted that a Westerner would be released within weeks. Other religious leaders with ties to the kidnapers had predicted a hostage release in a matter of days.

Shamseddine called for a comprehensive swap--rather than gradual releases--of Arab prisoners held by Israel in return for the 10 Westerners held by Shiites in Lebanon.

Israel demands a full accounting of its missing servicemen before it releases more of the detainees, including leading Shiite Muslim cleric Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid.

But Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens said Sunday that Obeid will not be released before any of the other Arab prisoners held in Israel or south Lebanon.

“No, we won’t do that,” said Arens, interviewed on ABC-TV. “I think if we give up that card, that may be the end of the release of hostages.”

In other signs of movement on the hostage issue, Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, called for all parties to cooperate with U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who is leading the negotiations for releases.

Iran has helped secure the release of hostages in Lebanon in recent years, and backs the Shiite extremist group Hezbollah, or Party of God, that reportedly controls factions holding the hostages.

Officials in Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon and the first stop for most released hostages, also said Sunday that they have been on constant alert since Wednesday.

When asked about a possible release, however, Shamseddine said:

“I can’t say in a matter of days, but I can say in a matter of weeks--provided that American and Western pressure continues to be put on Israel to release further Arab prisoners from Israeli prisons,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.