The UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations has met for the first time with countries that may deploy troops to southern Lebanon. (Photo: CCTV) Photo Gallery >>>

    BEIJING, Aug. 18 -- The UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations has met for the first time with countries that may deploy troops to southern Lebanon.

    UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown pressed ambassadors from dozens of countries to decide in the next few days on how many soldiers they would contribute and when.

    The UN had counted on France to lead an advance contingent of up to 35 hundred troops, which could be in place within two weeks. Paris already has some 200 troops in the existing 2,000 member UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, and leads the operation. And it has pledged to double that figure to four hundred.

    (Source: CCTV.com)

Related:

France waiting for UN meeting result to decide troops deployment in Lebanon: report

    PARIS, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- France is still waiting for the result of a UN meeting before making the decision on troop deployment to reinforce the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, French Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

    According to French daily Le Monde, France would only send symbolically "a dozen officers and a 200-man logistics team".

    French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau didn't confirm or comment the report.  Full story <<<