NZ to consider joining UN force in Lebanon

The Government will consider how New Zealand can participate in a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon but any contribution would be small, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today.

As fighting intensified in Lebanon ahead of a UN-brokered truce, Helen Clark said New Zealand would respond to the call for an international force.

"We will make a response but it is very likely to be a niche response because of the commitments we already have, which include East Timor and the Solomons," she told National Radio.

Defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mike Shatford said today they had yet to receive any orders to go to Lebanon.

He said it would be at least a fortnight before a deployment could be organised but it was unlikely to be the ready reaction strike force recently set up by the army.

"It is a government decision," he said.

New Zealand still had a company in Afghanistan and East Timor and a smaller deployment in the Solomon Islands.

Lt Col Shatford said the defence forces would probably be asked by the Government what assets could be sent to the area.

"We then provide a range of options," he said. "Once that has been done the Government decides what we will give."

- NZPA