EU Pledges More Troops For Lebanon
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday that Europe had agreed to provide more than half of an expanded peacekeeping force for Lebanon, with nearly 7,000 troops, and he hoped the "strong, credible and robust" force would be able to deploy in days, not weeks.
"Europe is providing the backbone of the force," Annan said after an emergency meeting with EU foreign ministers. "We can now begin to put toge1ther a credible force."
He said he asked France — which dramatically increased its pledged contribution to 2,000 troops late Thursday — to lead the force until February 2007.
European countries appeared to have overcome initial concern about being caught in the middle between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah. France, in particular, earlier held back from promising a large contribution and demanded a clearer definition of the mission and the rules of engagement.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Annan gave guarantees for the safety of European troops and on rules of engagement, and that France wanted an arms-free "exclusion zone" in south Lebanon.
"We think the best solution for disarming Hezbollah is to make an exclusion zone with the retreat of the Israeli army on one side and the deployment of the Lebanese Army on the other, reinforced by the U.N. troops," he said.
Earlier, French President Jacques Chirac said, "My feeling is that the figure that was put forward at the beginning of discussions — 15,000 for a reinforced UNIFIL — was a figure that was quite excessive."
About 150 French soldiers — an engineering team — came ashore Friday at Naqoura in southern Lebanon. They joined 250 of their countrymen already in Lebanon and raised to 2,200 the number of U.N. peacekeepers already in the south.
Annan said the United Nations also had received "firm commitments" from Muslim nations Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh, and was consulting with Turkey about joining the peacekeeping force. Israel has expressed concern, however, about contingents from Muslim countries with which it does not have relations.
In related developments:
The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, called on Israel to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Ending the blockade has been linked to forming a U.N. force.
Israel said it would lift the blockade after the Lebanese army and the bolstered international force take control of the country's ports and borders to prevent Hezbollah guerrillas from importing new arms.
"The minute they are there, we will be able to lift it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. The statement left unclear at what point Israel would consider there would be enough troops on the ground to lift the blockade.
Israel is maintaining the embargo, despite a U.N. brokered cease-fire, to prevent Hezbollah from rearming with the help of its Syrian and Iranian patrons. Regev said preventing the guerrillas from importing new weapons was a key element of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which called for the cease-fire.
Annan said that the U.N. force would be able to deploy along the Lebanese-Syrian border to help prevent weapons shipments to Hezbollah, but only if the Lebanese government asked for such help. Lebanon, to date, as neither asked for this nor ruled it out — but Syrian President Bashar Assad has strongly objected.
"It is generally accepted that the disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be done by force," Annan told reporters. "The troops are not going there to disarm Hezbollah, let's be clear on that."
Most of the EU's 25 members have been reluctant to take part in the peacekeeping effort because of uncertainty about the conditions under which troops would be authorized to use force.
But Chirac's pledge, along with his offer to continue leading the force, is almost certain to generate momentum for a breakthrough at the meeting of EU foreign ministers. Chirac cited the bolstered U.N. mandate as the chief reason to greatly increase France's troop presence.
Italy, has already pledged to provide up to 3,000 soldiers — the largest contingent so far. Besides France, other nations considering contributions include Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, and Greece.
On Friday, the Belgian government — which also had hesitated on making a commitment — said it would now contribute troops. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said Belgium's contribution to the U.N. force in Lebanon could reach almost 400 and be in place by October. The Belgian contingent would include de-mining, medical and reconstruction units, he said.
The U.N. has appealed for European troops to balance pledges from several Muslim countries so the force will be broadly acceptable to both the Israelis and Lebanese. Annan will brief the ministers on preparations for dispatching the additional blue helmets.
"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," EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday.
For Europe's prestige, the stakes are high. A broad EU agreement on sending in a substantial peacekeeping force would boost the bloc's ambitions to rival the United States as a global player. Failure would reinforce perceptions that it 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 U.N. resolution, but it does considerably clarify the rules of engagement, authorizing an expanded U.N. force to "to take all necessary action" to prevent hostile activities wherever peacekeepers are stationed.
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.
Sporadic violence has marked the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon that took hold Aug. 14 and ended 34 days of ferocious fighting, but the truce has thus far held.
The Europeans, who have bitter memories of their troops being humiliated while serving under weak U.N. mandates in Rwanda and the Balkans, generally agree that the new UNIFIL will not forcibly disarm Hezbollah, but will only oversee a political solution that would induce the militia to turn in its weapons 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.