UN Envoy Seeks Lebanon's Consent to Peacekeepers RedeploymentVisiting UN envoy Terje Roed Larsen was seeking Lebanon's approval of redeploying UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon at a meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Salim Hoss Monday morning.Larsen, who arrived here from Damascus Sunday evening, will also put the final touches on the redeployment operation of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the border zone evacuated by Israeli troops. Israel completed its withdrawal from south Lebanon on May 24, ending 22 years of occupation there. Larsen's move followed the completion of a week-long verification by UNIFIL and Lebanese army teams, which ascertained that Israel had corrected seven of nine major border encroachments in line with UN Resolution 425. Meanwhile, Hoss told An Nahar newspaper that two technical violations remained uncorrected, but he did not say whether this would keep his government from allowing the UNIFIL deployment. UN Secretary General's spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York Sunday night that Israel had pledged to correct the two remaining violations by the weekend. And UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has formally asked the Security Council to extend UNIFIL's mandate for another six months as of July 31, provided Lebanon deploy its armed forces in the liberated zone along with UNIFIL. Several local newspapers interpreted Annan's reference to the deployment of "armed forces" as a precondition for the extension of UN peacekeepers' mission. However, An Nahar newspaper quoted unnamed government officials as saying the "armed forces" do not necessarily mean the army. It also means police and other branches of Lebanon's security forces. Lebanese government contends that its army cannot be deployed to the region before UNIFIL completes its mission of filling the security vacuum left by the Israeli withdrawal. |
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