U.N. Mission Briefs Hariri on Purpose of UNIFIL Strategic Review
Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Tuesday at the Grand Serail a United Nations delegation currently visiting Lebanon to conduct a “strategic review” of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
"Together with my colleagues, the Force Commander and Head of UNIFIL, Major-General Michael Beary, and a number of other colleagues coming from New York, we just met with the Prime Minister. Before that, we had a meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri and we are planning to have a number of other meetings today and in the course of the week,” the Head of the delegation, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations El Ghassim Wane, said after the meeting.
“We are here in the context of the strategic review of UNIFIL, which was mandated by the Security Council, and will be looking at the implementation of the mandate, the key functions, tasks and activities of the mission,” he said.
Wane said the overall objective for would be to come up with recommendations that would make it possible to “increase the efficiency of UNIFIL.”
“I would like to add that UNIFIL is performing exceptionally well, but as you know, nothing is ever perfect. So whatever we can do to achieve a higher level of efficiency would be excellent for Lebanon, the U.N. and the region,” he added.
“The meeting with the Prime minister was an excellent opportunity for us to brief him on the purpose of the strategic review and what we intend to do in the coming days, but also to seek his views on the issues at hand, on UNIFIL, on the implementation of resolution 1701 and his overall vision and expectations,” Wane went on to say.
Describing the meeting as “extremely useful,” the U.S. official said Hariri laid down “very clear ideas.”
“One thing is absolutely sure, it is the U.N. commitment to continue supporting Lebanon, continue partnership with Lebanon, consolidate the extraordinary progress we made in South Lebanon, the continued peace of the past few years, the calm along the Blue line, as part of our overall strategy to support Lebanon and achieve even greater and faster progress,” Wane said.
“We all will benefit from ensuring that Lebanon remains a beacon of peace and hope in a region facing so many challenges,” he added.
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