BEIRUT, Lebanon: A senior U.N. envoy met Hezbollah officials in Lebanon on Wednesday to discuss the fate of two Israeli soldiers, whose capture by the militant group sparked last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war.

The visit by the U.N. Secretary General's Special Adviser to the Middle East, Michael Williams, comes ahead of a key report on Lebanon that the U.N. chief, Ban Ki-moon, will deliver to the Security Council on March 16.

Williams, accompanied by Geir Pederson, the U.N. representative in Lebanon, drove to the militant group's stronghold in Beirut's war-devastated southern suburb where they held talks with former energy minister from Hezbollah ranks, Mohammed Fneish, and Wafik Safa, a senior Hezbollah security official.

Besides discussing efforts to free the two Israeli soldiers, the talks also touched on the Aug. 14 ceasefire, Hezbollah's alleged weapons buildup, Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, Israeli overflights in Lebanon and the problem of thousands of land mines and cluster bombs scattered by Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, local media reported.

Williams described the meeting as "very good" but stressed the need for full commitment to implement the cease-fire. "We want to build on that commitment so that we can see things delivered," he told reporters.

Hezbollah guerrillas seized the two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. sparked the fighting with Israeli forces. The militant Hezbollah's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has insisted the two Israeli soldiers would be released only through a prisoner exchange with Israel.

On Tuesday, relatives of the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev met in New York with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who promised he would keep working hard to seek their release. The relatives later appealed through the media on Hezbollah to provide information about their condition.

In Lebanon on Wednesday, a brother of Samir Kantar — a Lebanese man serving a 542-year prison sentence in Israel in the killing of three Israelis during an attack in 1979 and one of four men who Hezbollah demands be released by Israel — urged the relatives to instead pressure Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to accept a prisoner swap with Hezbollah as the only way to secure the release of their kin.

Kantar's brother, Bassam Kantar, said his message to the relatives was to "step up ... pressure on Prime Minister Olmert who is stalling in order to delay a discussion on the fate of your sons for political purposes."

An Israeli government acceptance of Hezbollah's conditions for the release of the two soldiers would end the "tragedy" both for Israel and Lebanon, he said.

U.N.'s Williams arrived here after visiting Israel. After talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on Tuesday, he said he was satisfied with the cooperation between the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon.

More than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers and around 15,000 Lebanese army troops patrol a buffer zone in south Lebanon after the cease-fire. -AP