New government to determine how many troops will be sent to Lebanon

The Czech Republic is prepared to send troops to southern Lebanon as part of the Unifil UN peacekeeping force but will have to wait until a new government is formed to determine how many soldiers can be deployed, says deputy foreign minister Jaroslav Basta. Mr Basta was speaking at Friday's extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, which was also attended by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Until the country has a new government, Mr Basta says, it will only be involved in the Israel-Lebanon conflict through humanitarian aid and rebuilding projects.

The European Union has committed itself to provide up to 7,000 of the 15,000 troops that the UN hopes to deploy to southern Lebanon to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.