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The United Nations on Wednesday canceled for the second time this week a planned meeting of governments over offering troops to an international force to be deployed in southern Lebanon.

"The troop-contributing countries meeting that was due to be held tomorrow has been again postponed," UN official Ahmad Fawzi said.

"It is clear that it remains premature for such a meeting to beheld because of the absence of an agreed political framework for ending the conflict," the UN official added.

The meeting, initially scheduled for Monday, was delayed until Thursday to give the international community more time to make progress on a political settlement of the conflict.

France, considered as a possible leader of the international force, announced Wednesday that it would not attend Thursday's meeting, saying a political agreement on how to end the three-week conflict must be worked out first.

Members of the UN Security Council are discussing a France-sponsored draft resolution that would call for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and set out conditions for apolitical settlement.

Editor: Yan