Beirut has instructed its mission at UN headquarters in New York to resist any attempt to change the mandate of UNIFIL peacekeepers in the south or cut the size of the force, senior political sources disclosed Thursday.
The instructions were conveyed to Lebanon’s UN ambassador, Salim Tadmuri, following a late-night meeting among President Emile Lahoud, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud, the sources told the Daily Star newspaper.
During the 40-minute meeting at the president’s residence in Baabdat, the four agreed that “Lebanon was unequivocally committed to the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 425 with regard to the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon,” a source close to the conferees said.
Also, Beirut was opposed to reducing the 4,500-strong force, as suggested by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during his annual report to the Security Council earlier this week.
Annan has proposed a 20 percent reduction in the size of the peacekeeping force when its six-month term comes up for renewal at the end of this month.
Earlier, he had proposed halving the force by next summer.
Annan had also irked the leadership in Beirut with renewed calls contained in his report for the dispatch of the Lebanese army to the border.
The government has adamantly rejected such a move, claiming it would turn its regular forces into security guards for the Jewish state, according to the paper.
Also, while the Shabaa Farms remain occupied, Lebanon would not take any steps to rein in the resistance, something the army would have to do if deployed at the border.
The source said the meeting at Baabdat underscored “unwavering agreement among the country’s leading policymakers with regard to the situation in the South.”
The Lebanese stand was expected to further strain relations with the United Nations, which has insisted that Israel had fulfilled its obligations under Resolution 425 when it withdrew its forces from the South in May 2000. But Lebanon remains adamant that without the return of the Shabaa Farms, the withdrawal remains incomplete.
Israel maintains that the stretch of land belongs to Syria – Albawaba.com
