TYRE, Lebanon: The Lebanese Army is the main force protecting the country, Italy's Undersecretary for Defense said Monday.
“Lebanon is a country that carries the burden of external, crossborder conflicts,” Joaquino Alfano said during a ceremony in south Lebanon to transfer commanders of Italy's UNIFIL contingent.
“The Lebanese Army is the main, inevitable element that could protect the country's security and stability.”
The outgoing UNIFIL commander of the western part of south Lebanon Fabio Polly congratulated his successor Stefano del Col.
"Italy has ben playing a major role in the restoration of this country’s stability,” Alfano said, “and especially through an Italian approach in dealing with peacekeeping operations, which is appreciated by everyone.”
Hailing the relations between Lebanon and Italy, Alfano announced that a new project will create a training facility for the Army in order to gradually prepare it to keep the border region under control whenever UNIFIL soldiers are not present.
The ceremony was held at the office of the Italian unit’s leader in the village of Shamaa, south of Tyre, and was also attended by the head of the UNIFIL forces Gen. Luciano Portolano, commander of the Joint Forces Operation Unit Maj. Gen. Marco Bertolini, and Italian Ambassador to Lebanon Giuseppe Murabito.
“Our collaboration with the Lebanese Army is the foundation of UNIFIL’s term.
We work hand in hand, day after day, on building a culture of mutual trust based on solid principles that would eventually allow us to transfer control over UNIFIL’s area of operations to the Lebanese Army.”
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