UN encouraged with latest offers for Lebanon peacekeeping

Troop commitments from France, Italy and several other European nations mean the United Nations will be able to deploy an initial force of 3,500 peacekeepers to south Lebanon in the coming days as it had hoped, a senior UN official said.

In a new York meeting of troop contributing nations yesterday, Italy and France confirmed that they will lead the early vanguard of peacekeepers, with hundreds more troops from other European nations – and possibly some Asian countries – to follow in the coming weeks. Italian troops could start deploying within two to three days.

Overall, 20 nations detailed their commitments to provide support for the force in the meeting, and several others have also promised soldiers. That put the UN goal of deploying the first 3,500 troops by Saturday within reach.

“I think we’re in business,” Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi told reporters after the meeting.

“On the basis of the offers we have now received, we can now start structuring that deployment and move ahead with it very quickly.”

The troops are meant to help ease out Israeli forces that occupied south Lebanon during more than a month of war with Hezbollah. Israel’s troops would be replaced by 15,000 Lebanese Army forces.

The pledges from European nations largely echoed the commitments they made at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers last week.

A major deployment like the one to Lebanon would usually take months, but UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have said the situation there is urgent and the troops must be deployed more quickly.

Italy will send 2,496 troops initially, of whom 1,455 would remain on ships offshore in support roles. Over the next few weeks, its contribution would rise to 2,680 troops, with 2,450 of them on the ground.

France, meanwhile, will offer 2,000 troops – 400 immediately, followed by an additional two battalions – or about 1,600 troops by the end of October. Another 1,700 support troops that have been sent on cruise ships will remain offshore but in the region.

Despite those pledges, it seems unlikely that the UN will meet the goal of sending 15,000 troops any time soon. Only three nations have offered troops in anywhere near the same numbers as Italy and France, but none of them - Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia – has diplomatic ties with Israel, and Israeli officials have not yet agreed to let them join the force.

The only non-European nations that spoke at yesterday’s meeting were Turkey and Indonesia. The presence of Muslim soldiers in the force is regarded as crucial to gaining its acceptance in Lebanon.

Earlier yesterday, Turkey’s Cabinet called for sending troops to Lebanon and said parliament would be convened soon to vote on the measure.

Otherwise, yesterday’s meeting saw European nations offer contingents ranging anywhere from three people (Luxembourg proposed sending an officer and two soldiers to help clear mines) to the 500 put forward by Poland. Belgium offered between 300 and 400.

Several other nations that are expected to major roles in the future force, including Turkey, Spain and Portugal, said they still had not decided how many troops to offer.

And the bulk of the rest that spoke were European nations that promised to send ships and support troops to help patrol Lebanon’s coast.

“We’re encouraged that we can get the first deployment of the bulkhead force within the next few days,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.