Annan to press EU nations over Lebanon peacekeeping force
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was today trying to persuade European nations to contribute troops to the United Nation’s expanded peacekeeping force for Lebanon, building on the momentum created by France’s promise to provide 2,000 more soldiers.
Most of the European Union’s 25 member nations have been reluctant to take part in an expanded UN force, known as UNIFIL, because of uncertainty about the force of the mandate.
But French President Jacques Chirac’s promise late yesterday to increase its current troop commitment fivefold, along with his offer to continue leading the force, was expected to generate momentum for more pledges at today’s emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers.
Belgium – which earlier hesitated on making a commitment – became the latest nation to promise troops today.
“It is our duty to take part, and Belgium will take up its responsibility,” Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said before the start of the EU talks.
Annan said he hoped for more such pledges today.
“I came with the hope that I will leave Brussels with a large number of soldiers,” he told reporters after meeting with Verhofstadt.
The UN has appealed for European troops to balance pledges from several Muslim countries so the force will be broadly acceptable to both to the Israelis and the Lebanese.
“I am confident that Europe will provide the necessary support to expand the UNIFIL force to help the government of Lebanon extend its control over all Lebanese territory,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said earlier.
For Europe, the stakes are high. A broad EU agreement on sending a substantial peacekeeping force would boost the bloc’s ambitions to rival the United States as a global player. Failure would reinforce perceptions that the EU talks big but can’t act.
The United States has explicitly ruled out participation in the peacekeeping force.
UNIFIL, in place since the 1970s, has been widely considered ineffectual and has been dogged by a vague mandate.
Ambiguities remain in the recent UN resolution, but it does considerably clarify the rules of engagement, authorising an expanded UN force to “to take all necessary action” to prevent hostile activities wherever peacekeepers are stationed.
Chirac cited the bolstered UN mandate as the chief reason to greatly increase France’s troop presence.
A UN ceasefire resolution authorises the expansion of the existing UN force in Lebanon from 2,000 to as many as 15,000 troops. The peacekeepers are to help 15,000 Lebanese troops extend their authority into southern Lebanon, which has been controlled by Hezbollah, as Israel withdraws its soldiers.
Italy has pledged up to 3,000 soldiers – the largest contingent so far.
The Europeans, who have bitter memories of the failures of weak UN mandates in Rwanda and the Balkans, generally agree that the new UN force would not forcibly disarm Hezbollah but would only monitor a political solution that would induce guerrillas to turn their weapons over to the Lebanese army.
Similarly, they are unlikely to agree to any further tasks, such as deploying forces along the Lebanon-Syria border in order to interdict possible arms supplies to Hezbollah.
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