BEIRUT, Sept 9: Syria has agreed in principle to allow unarmed European Union personnel to patrol its border with Lebanon to prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah guerillas, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Saturday.
Prodi said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who last month warned that the deployment of international forces on the border would be a ‘hostile’ move, had approved the idea. Mr Prodi added he hoped it would be discussed by EU foreign ministers next week.
Israel had called for an international presence on the Lebanon-Syria border to prevent arms smuggling as a condition for a full Israeli military withdrawal from Lebanon.
“The EU has significant experience in training and deploying border guards so I expressed (to Mr Assad) the idea of an EU mission to the frontier between Syria and Lebanon,” Mr Prodi said, adding that Mr Assad ‘gave his firm agreement in principle’.
One Syrian political source said Damascus would not oppose EU technical help to strengthen monitoring at the border.
The EU personnel would be unarmed and would not wear uniforms, Mr Prodi said, and would bolster 500 Syrian border guards that Mr Assad has already committed. Mr Prodi said Mr Annan and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana backed the idea.
Mr Prodi’s comments came shortly after more than 200 French military engineers arrived at Beirut port, the advance group of a battalion which will bolster a UN force set up to keep the peace between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
“They are the forward group of a French battalion which is due to arrive next week,” said Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the UNIFIL peacekeepers.
BUILDING UP UN FORCE: Israel invaded southern Lebanon and struck targets across the country after Hezbollah captured two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
It has gradually withdrawn forces since an Aug 14 ceasefire and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says it should complete the withdrawal once 5,000 UN troops reach south Lebanon.
The French troops arriving on Saturday brought the total UN force to around 3,350. Between 200 and 300 French logistics specialists and engineers disembarked at the port, offloading six armoured carriers and 100 trucks.
The UN force could reach 5,000 once the rest of the 700-strong French battalion arrive next week and an expected Spanish contingent of around 900 troops reach Lebanon, he added.
But security sources say logistics problems, including painstaking demining operations in south Lebanon, could delay the actual deployment of the peacekeepers.
Under the UN Security Council resolution that halted the war, up to 15,000 UN troops are to join a similar number of Lebanese soldiers deploying in the south to secure a border zone free of any Israeli or armed Hezbollah presence.
The French contingent arrived a day after Israel ended a two-month naval embargo which Lebanon said was hindering reconstruction of bridges, homes, roads and factories destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Israel lifted the blockade, which it said it imposed to prevent Hezbollah re-arming, after Italian, French and Greek naval forces arrived to patrol Lebanon’s coast.
Beirut port director Hassan Kraytem said four ships had arrived since the blockade was lifted, two container ships, and others with shipments of wheat and cars.
“Today the situation was very good, work is back to normal,” he said, adding he hoped the port could recoup some of the $10 million-a-month revenue which it lost since July 12.
On Thursday, Israel lifted its air blockade of Lebanon, allowing commercial airliners to resume flights to Beirut airport which was bombed early in the conflict.—Reuters
