LEBANON: Italian Foreign Minister arrives in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officials.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema arrived in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officials hours after a U.N.-brokered truce went into effect on Monday (August 14). D'Alema held a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora at the presidential office in downtown Beirut. At a news conference held after the meeting, D'Alema reiterated Italy's commitment to help uphold the truce but cautioned that it will only work if both sides continue to honour the ceasefire. "Italy is ready to contribute to a United Nations' peace force that would be deployed in the south of Lebanon to guarantee security and to put an end to the violations of the Blue Line, thereby guaranteeing a stable peace," D'Alema said. The UN-brokered truce was implemented at 0500GMT on Monday to end five weeks of fighting between Israel and Hizbollah that killed more than 1,250 people and wounded thousands. Diplomats expect the truce to be fragile -- tens of thousands of Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, and they are not expected to withdraw fully until an international peacekeeping force arrives alongside Lebanese troops. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Friday to end the fighting, Israeli forces must start to withdraw as around 15,000 foreign peacekeeping troops and 15,000 Lebanese soldiers arrive in the south. Hizbollah must also pull its fighters out of southern Lebanon. Hizbollah has said its guerrillas would observe a truce once it began but reserved the right to fight Israeli soldiers still on Lebanese soil. Diplomats expect it will take at least a week for U.N. troops and Lebanese soldiers to begin taking over southern Lebanon. Israeli forces would then withdraw from an area they gave up in 2000 after a 22-year occupation. "I think that we have to deploy as soon possible the international force on the ground because it is a condition for the withdrawal of Israeli forces. It depends not only on Italy, it depends on the United Nations and we are working with the United Nations on that. And it depends on the Lebanese government because it is the Lebanese army that has to deploy in the south of the country and my opinion what I said to Prime Minister Siniora and my colleagues in the Lebanese government that 'you have to act immediately," said D'Alema. In a separate meeting, Siniora also held talks with France's ambassador to Lebanon, Bernard Emie, who hailed Lebanon for honouring the truce. France appears ready to lead the force and diplomats envision an initial French deployment of 2,000 soldiers. "We hail the decision of the Lebanese government to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution 1701. This is what (the government) should be working on. There are some ultimatums the international parties should work on," ambassador Emie told reporters after his meeting with Siniora. Portugal, Finland and Spain are also considering deployments. Solana listed Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Indonesia as non-EU nations prepared to help.

ITN Source | August 15, 2006

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