Tenenti: UNIFIL Will Not Evacuate South if Regional Situation Escalates
Spokesman of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon Andrea Tenenti noted that the implementation of U.N. Security Council 1701 will be halted should the situation in the region escalate, reported al-Mustaqbal daily on Sunday.
He added to the daily that UNIFIL will not leave the South should the situation escalate.
Resolution 1701 will be obstructed because its article on the halt of hostile acts would have been violated, he explained.
Should this occur, he added, then the position of the international force will lie in the hands of the Security Council.
UNIFIL has been deployed in the South since 1978 and it had never left the area throughout the wars that had been witnessed in the area, Tenenti stressed.
The international force is aimed at helping the Lebanese state and its people and overseeing the cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, he added.
Commenting on reports that an Italian ship had been sent to evacuate UNIFIL's Italian mission, he remarked that the Italian Embassy in Lebanon alone has an answer to these claims.
The international force has not altered its security measures and it has not intention to change its rules of engagement that dictate its actions in the South, Tenenti said.
Italy has already dispatched a warship to the eastern Mediterranean that could evacuate UNIFIL's 1,100-member Italian contingent if the conflict in Syria spills over into Lebanon.
"This is the best possible asset to act quickly in case of an evacuation," a navy spokesman told Agence France Presse on Saturday.
The Andrea Doria, a 153-meter long destroyer, "will monitor the situation,”he said.
Lebanese diplomats meanwhile told As Safir daily on Saturday that UNIFIL was considering an evacuation of the families of its staff away from the media spotlight
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