Enlarge imagePARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac has spoken with leaders from several countries to stress the need for a clearer mandate for an enlarged United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, his office said on Saturday.
The diplomatic offensive, partly to explain Paris’s decision to send only 200 additional troops to bolster the existing U.N. force (UNIFIL) to help cement a ceasefire, came on the same day that about 50 French peacekeepers arrived in south Lebanon, with more due to leave France on Sunday.
Chirac spoke by telephone on Saturday with Italy’s Romano Prodi, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, as well as Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan.
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The president "insisted on the vital need for balance in the composition of the force, which should reflect the commitment of the whole international community and in particular of European countries", Chirac’s office said in a statement.
Chirac also spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday on the same subject, "underlining the need to make clear very rapidly the missions, the rules of engagement, the chain of command and the reinforced UNIFIL’s means", his office said.
The United Nations and the United States had hoped France would form the backbone of the expanded U.N. force and have been disappointed by the number of extra troops that France has been willing to commit so far.
Chirac has left open the possibility that Paris will send more troops to UNIFIL, which is eventually expected to be a 15,000-strong force capable of policing the peace between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas that followed a month-long war.
