Belarus is weighing the sending of its military peacekeeping forces to Lebanon, the newspaper Nasha Niva reports.
The was discussed during last week’s visit of Italy’s Defense Staff Chief Enzo Vecciarelli to Belarus.
To date, there are some Belarusian citizens in supply and medical departments in Lebanon; moreover, two operational officers from Belarus are doing their service there.
“Mr Vecciarelli and I discussed a number of aspects that must be added to the documents so that our troops could go as part of the Italian forces to Lebanon and carry out joint tasks with Serbs, Italians and Poles,” Aleh Belakoneu, Chief of Belarus’ General Staff, said.
About 10,000 persons are involved in the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Its goals are attracting the world’s attention in order to render more help to the Lebanese army so that they could be fully responsible for the security in the country. Now Italy is in charge of the UN contingent in Lebanon.
Belarus has a company of peacekeepers; 100 soldiers were trained abroad and ‘they are ready to serve ‘in every region of the world’, Defense Minister Andrey Raukou said in 2018.
According to Belakoneu, Belarus is also ready for joint exercises with NATO, the possible formats being dmulled over. But at the same time, the bloc should remember that Minsk’s strategic ally is Moscow, he added.
