MARJAYOUN - Spain's King Juan Carlos inspected Spanish UN troops stationed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday as he wrapped up a two-day visit to the country. Wearing full military uniform, he placed a wreath at a memorial for soldiers who have fallen in the country since the United Nations Interim Force
in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was founded in 1978 to monitor the border with Israel. Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon accompanied the king to Marjayoun, where the monarch also met UNIFIL commander Alberto Asarta Cuevas and around 100 Spanish troops. 

The trip comes just days after Spain took over command of UNIFIL, which currently has 12,000 troops from 29 countries, with Spain in third place contributing 1,070 soldiers. Since UNIFIL's founding, 275 of its soldiers have died in service. The last major attack targeted a UN patrol in south Lebanon in June 2007, when a car bomb killed three Spaniards and three Colombians on patrol. The king, on his first visit to Lebanon, held talks late on Monday with President Michel Sleiman, who praised Spain's "determination to reach a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East." 

Spain has held the rotating presidency of the European Union since January and vowed to make every effort to ensure Israeli-Arab peace negotiations resume as soon as possible. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos reiterated Madrid's stand in talks on Tuesday with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. "There has been a long and frustrating peace process and the time now is for ... all the parties to engage in serious talks" on both the Palestinian-Israeli and Israeli-Syria tracks, he said. 

Moratinos said he and Hariri also discussed Lebanese concerns about Israeli "threats" in past weeks against Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah and its backer Syria. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak "want to have a peaceful and positive engagement with all parties and countries," Moratinos said. Last week, Netanyahu accused Beirut of allowing Hezbollah to smuggle weapons into Lebanon in "blatant violation of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701," which is monitored on the ground by UNIFIL. But on Sunday he sought to ease tensions, saying Israel wanted peace with all its neighbours. 

Resolution 1701 brought an end to a devastating month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.