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UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday welcomed the pledges made by countries including China on rapid deployment of peacekeeping operations.
A UN peacekeeping defense ministerial meeting was held in London on Thursday. In support of UN's initiative of setting up a "vanguard brigade" of 4,000 rapid deployable troops, China said it will make part of its 8,000 rapid deployable troops meet the Level II readiness requirement of 60 days.
Ban said he is "particularly encouraged" by the pledges related to rapid deployment to maintain units at a high level of readiness, according to a statement released by his spokesperson.
"The Secretary-General reaffirms the UN's commitment to work with troop- and police-contributing countries in continuing to improve the performance of UN peacekeepers," said the statement.
The London meeting is a follow-up event of the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping which was convened last year at the United Nations.
The meeting is expected to improve the planning of UN peacekeeping operations and to promote the implementation of the pledges made by countries at last year's summit.
