Lebanon Seeks to Preserve UNIFIL Current Tasks

Lebanon Seeks to Preserve UNIFIL Current Tasks
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Lebanon Seeks to Preserve UNIFIL Current Tasks

Lebanon Seeks to Preserve UNIFIL Current Tasks

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun affirmed the country’s insistence on the presence of the international forces operating in the South (UNIFIL), pointing out that the Cabinet has taken a decision to “resort to the Security Council to request an extension of its mission for an additional year without modifying its mandate, concept of operations and special rules of engagement.”

Aoun was speaking during a meeting in Baabda on Wednesday with the ambassadors of the five permanent Security Council members, in the presence of UN Secretary-General Representative, Jan Kubis.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab emphasized that “the continued presence of (UNIFIL) forces in southern Lebanon is an international need.”

“The continued work of UNIFIL in Southern Lebanon is an international need, before being a Lebanese demand. The presence of these forces, according to the role assigned to them, is now necessary to prevent tension and redress any danger looming at the borders as a result of Israeli violations,” he said.

However, the Lebanese position seems to be heading towards a clash with the US Administration.

Aoun asserted that the Lebanese Constitution stipulates the respect of private properties, in reference to Washington’s request to expand UNIFIL’s scope of operations to include searching homes in southern villages and towns.

“Our adherence to it is only surpassed by our attachment to public freedoms and full Lebanese sovereignty”, Aoun remarked.

US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea replied by saying that the effectiveness of UNIFIL should be increased.

“We need to consider increasing the effectiveness of UNIFIL to its maximum extent and if it is not able to achieve its mandate fully, we must ask questions about whether the current number is the best,” she told the meeting.

Shea then noted that the private property could not be implemented by UNIFIL, stressing that the issue should be addressed openly and without any hesitation.

Kubis, for his part, confirmed UN readiness to assist and support Lebanon. He also underlined the consolidation and development of partnership between UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army.



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.