BRUSSELS—European Union foreign ministers will hold emergency talks on Friday on troop contributions to a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon amid growing pressure on their countries to raise their commitments.
Italy has offered up to 3,000 troops and France boosted its pledge to 2,000 on the eve of the Brussels meeting, but other contributions to the potentially hazardous mission have been meager despite prompting from the United States and others.
"I expect that reluctant or not, smiling or not, there will be an ample European contribution," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said after a meeting in Rome with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday.
"(U.S. President George W.) Bush is making a strong effort to put pressure on friendly countries in order to broaden the number of participants in the mission," he told reporters.
EU President Finland, which will chair Friday's meeting of the bloc's 25 foreign ministers and U.N. Secretary-General, insisted the EU's credibility was at stake and that it must show it can deploy rapidly to protect a fragile ceasefire.
"The main thrust of the force should be there within a few weeks because every day there is a risk that the ceasefire could unravel," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja told reporters in Berlin after meeting his German counterpart.
U.N. officials see a strong European contingent as vital to the balance of an expanded multinational peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, which is set to have up to 15,000 troops and work alongside Lebanese soldiers in the south of the country.
They say the force is urgently needed to preserve the truce between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrilla group, which came into effect on August 14 after a month of fighting which killed more than 1,300 people, mostly Lebanese civilians.
President Jacques Chirac, who disappointed allies by initially offering only to double an existing French contingent to 400, said France would increase its deployment after winning assurances they would be able to defend themselves robustly.
"We have received the necessary clarifications from the United Nations," Chirac said in a televised address, of the command structure and rules of engagement of an operation which could get caught in the crossfire of any resumed hostilities.
The United Nations is planning to create a mini-command center made up of leading troop contributors to the force, hoping to allay French fears that they would lack sufficient control over their soldiers.
Italy has offered to lead the operation, but Chirac said France could also take on that role.
