THE United Nations is expected to begin the deployment of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon next month after European nations pledged to provide up to 9,000 troops.

“We can now begin to put together a credible force,” Kofi Annan, the UN SecretaryGeneral, said after a meeting with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels.

However, he ruled out demands for the UN force to disarm Hezbollah, which sparked the 34-day conflict with Israel when it seized two Israeli soldiers last month. “It is generally accepted that the disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be done by force,” he said. “The troops are not going there to disarm Hezbollah, let’s be clear on that.”

His attempt to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah also ran into a row over the size of the beefed-up UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil). Mr Annan said that he was confident of getting the 15,000-strong force that his planners say is necessary.

But he was contradicted by President Chirac of France, who denounced the figure as excessive. He said that a smaller force was needed to avoid the danger of UN peacekeepers “bumping into” the 15,000 Lebanese soldiers moving into the region.

On Thursday M Chirac, who had initially announced the dispatch of 200 French troops to Lebanon, changed tack and said that he was sending 1,600. Criticised over his hesitation, he said: “I wonder how it would have been judged if I had raced off like a mad dog without securing minimum guarantees.”

The French President was rebuffed in his attempt to maintain his country’s leadership of the UN operation. General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander, will see out his term in charge of the existing Unifil, a force seen as toothless, but Mr Annan asked Italy to take control of the expanded mission in February after Rome pledged up to 3,000 troops.

The other countries contributing include Spain, which is reported to have offered up to 1,200 soldiers, and Belgium, which said that it would send between 300 and 400. Poland has also offered to more than double its present commitment to 500.

Mr Annan said that European countries would contribute more than half the troops in the force, which is meant to prevent a fresh conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Dermot Ahern, the Irish Foreign Minister, said that the total European contribution could reach 9,000, although Philippe Douste-Blazy, his French counterpart, put the figure at 6,500 to 7,000. Geoff Hoon, the Minister for Europe, said that the British forces were too stretched to send troops but that Britain would offer specialised forces.

Mr Annan said that the UN mission to enforce the peace in southern Lebanon would be “strong, credible and robust”.

Although EU forces would form the backbone, Muslim countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh had also committed troops, Mr Annan said. However, their presence will be opposed by Israel, which has expressed concern about the participation of nations with whom it does not have diplomatic relations.

European ministers said that they had agreed to send troops only after winning a guarantee from Mr Annan on clear rules of engagement to avoid the indecision that hampered UN peacekeeping in the Balkans. But Hezbollah’s disarmament appeared to remain unresolved, with European military planners suggesting that their role was to help the Lebanese Army to undertake the task, even though it may be ill-equipped and unwilling to do so.

Last night Israel rejected a demand from M Chirac to lift the air and sea embargo, saying that it would do so only when the illegal supply of arms to Hezbollah had been stopped.

M Douste-Blazy urged the creation of an arms-free zone: “The solution for disarming Hezbollah is to make an exclusion zone with the retreat of the Israeli Army on one side and the deployment of the Lebanese Army on the other, reinforced by UN troops.”

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