Israel and Lebanon on Saturday both welcomed an EU pledge to contribute up to 7,000 troops to a beefed-up UN peacekeeping mission capable of enforcing the fragile truce with Shiite militants of Hezbollah.
"Israel congratulates European countries on their decision to send these contingents for the international force in Lebanon," foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said following Friday's decision by the 25-nation bloc.
"This decision will greatly contribute to the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701," he said, with the EU now supplying more than half the extra soldiers needed to bring the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) up to its mandated 15,000 from its current count of 2,000.
Mohammed Chatah, a senior advisor to Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, told AFP that "the government is very satisfied with this positive and important decision.
"Following some delay and some doubts, the backbone of the international force has now been determined and it will allow for the Israeli army to quickly withdraw from south Lebanon and for the army to deploy" in the region, Chatah said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is due in Beirut on Monday to discuss the deployment with Lebanese leaders, also hailed the EU's decision. "We may have a unique opportunity to transform the cessation of hostilities into a durable cease-fire," he said in Brussels.
Half of the EU troops are to be deployed rapidly, with the 2,000 troops France has pledged to arrive within 20 days, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told The Wall Street Journal.
But French President Jacques Chirac, who was speaking separately Friday in Paris, said a level of 15,000 troops was "excessive" and it made "no sense" to have such a large contingent alongside the Lebanese army in the region.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy put the EU deployment at "6,500 to 7,000 soldiers on the ground, which means that the spinal column of the reinforced UNIFIL will be European."
The force is crucial to shoring up Resolution 1701, which on August 14 brought an end to the brutal 34-day conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. The UN chief also proposed that France see out its current term as commander of the force, which expires at the end of January, after which Italy would take over.
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