The talks, dubbed the Ministerial Conference on International Support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, were held under the auspices of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.
“The United States intends to provide increased assistance, including on counterterrorism, border security and on other relevant fields,” said the statement.
“The EU will step up its support to LAF civilian-military cooperation tasks and its engagement in the areas of institutional capacity building, integrated border management, CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) threat and demining,” the statement said.
“Participants reiterated their strong support to Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and independence, noting the critical role played by the Lebanese Armed Forces in this context,” said the statement.
Lebanon was represented at the conference by Deputy Premier and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil.
“The Lebanese Army is confronting increasing local and external security challenges in order to protect Lebanon's stability and preserve it, and it is in a dire need for arming and training,” Moqbel told the conference.
And this right here is evidence enough why aoun cannot be a credible option for the presidency. International support comes on the condition that Lebanon meets certain hurdles or " must be paralleled " by the politicians actions. Somthing aoun has proven a failure at time and time again. His MOU is 9 years old yet has not taken action on it. He is a stubborn old man still living in his prime years of 40 somthing and cannot implement policies as he continuously changes his mind to suite his mood. Time for this old cow to be put out to pasture and elect a " strong Christian leader" with conviction character courage and a vision for our country.
The Lebanese Army must be equipped to take down Hezbollah if need be.
In fact, I still believe Hezbollah's armed "Wing" (although Nasrallah rejects this notion of armed wing and considers the entire party to be a single terrorist entity) should be dismantled and merged into the Lebanese Army.
It's the safest and quickest path for the LAF to defend Lebanon from Zombie Cannibal Takfiri Zionist Boogy men !