Last update - 00:00 28/09/2006
170 Spanish peacekeeping troops, engineers land in Lebanon
By The Associated Press and Israel Radio
Dozens of Spanish troops disembarked from a Spanish military ship docked in the port of Beirut on Thursday, the latest additions to a growing United Nations-led peacekeeping mission monitoring the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Some 170 troops and engineers arrived in Lebanon, along with 35 containers of military and building materials and 15 vehicles, said Alberto Gonzales, an official working with the Spanish contingent in Lebanon.
He said the troops would head to south Lebanon to join hundreds of other Spanish peacekeepers currently based near the Christian town of Marjayoun.
Some 600 Spanish troops arrived in Lebanon earlier this month, in the first phase of a Spanish deployment eventually to total about 1,100 in the coming weeks.
They join the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, as it expands from 2,000 soldiers to 15,000 under a new Security Council resolution.
The UN force will patrol a buffer zone in south Lebanon to prevent a reemergence of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Spain will be the third-largest contributor to the UN force. France, Italy, Ghana and India currently have the largest contingents in UNIFIL.
South Korea has also announced plans to look into the possibility of sending troops to join the multi-national force. A South Korean team will go to Lebanon to examine the matter.
The 34-day war, which ended in a UN-brokered cease-fire on August 14, killed more than 1,000 people - mostly Lebanese civilians.
Siniora to visit Berlin, discuss deployment of German peacekeepers
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to discuss how the implementation of the UN-brokered cease-fire and the deployment of UNIFIL, during talks here Thursday.
The leaders will also consider longer-term efforts to stabilize and strengthen Lebanon
and "what opportunities Siniora sees to give further support and new impetus to the
political process to solve the crisis in the Middle East," Thomas Steg, a spokesman for Merkel, said on Wednesday.
Germany has joined calls for the Quartet which had sought to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians to try to revive talks on a broader regional peace.