Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will head to Rome this week for talks focusing on future of the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, whose mandate ends this year, a Lebanese official told AFP.<\/p>\n
The visit scheduled for Thursday comes after Italy and France said in June that they wanted to set up a multinational coalition to succeed the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).<\/p>\n
Both countries have large troop contingents in UNIFIL.<\/p>\n
Aoun is to meet his counterpart Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to discuss \u201cthe future of the international forces, particularly in light of the French-Italian initiative to set up a force to replace UNIFIL\u201d, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
Aoun will also meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and brief him on \u201cthe contacts Lebanon has been making since negotiations began\u201d with Israel, the official added.<\/p>\n
Lebanon and Israel launched US-sponsored direct talks after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March by attacking Israel, which responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion.<\/p>\n
Rome has hosted the last two rounds of talks.<\/p>\n
Aoun has said Lebanon\u2019s preferred choice is an extension of UNIFIL\u2019s mandate, a move opposed by Israel.<\/p>\n
On Monday, he said that \u201cthe second choice is adopting a formula that ensures the continued presence of international forces in the south\u201d alongside Lebanon\u2019s army \u201cand in coordination with it\u201d.<\/p>\n
A framework agreement reached in June between Israel and Lebanon calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in \u201cpilot zones\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite a weeks-long lull in fighting, Israel has kept up intermittent strikes and heavy demolition operations in south Lebanon, where its forces are operating in a strip of territory around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep inside the Lebanese border.<\/p>\n
Lebanon and several other countries fear a security vacuum if UNIFIL pulls out without an alternative in place.<\/p>\n
In a June report, UN chief Antonio Guterres said peacekeepers would be needed after UNIFIL\u2019s mission ends and proposed three options ranging from nearly 2,000 to more than 5,500 UN personnel.<\/p>\n
Last month, 86 Lebanese lawmakers signed a letter urging the Security Council to keep the peacekeepers.<\/p>\n
UNIFIL, which now counts some 7,500 personnel from nearly 50 countries, has been in place since 1978, although its presence has not prevented repeated outbreaks of conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will head to Rome this week for talks focusing on future of the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[559,93,1521,12508],"class_list":["post-255233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-international","tag-lebanon","tag-mna","tag-uncategorized"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117118910068455125","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}