The European Union has announced that it would contribute for half of the UN force to be deployed in southern Lebanon in the next weeks and months.

Annan said that agreement has been reached on new rules of engagement. They authorize the troops to use force against anyone preventing them from doing their job.

“If, for example, combatants, or those illicitly moving weapons, forcibly resist a demand from them, or from the Lebanese army, to disarm,” the secretary general said, armed force could be used.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters that Annan gave guarantees for the safety of European troops and on rules of engagement, and that France wanted an arms-free “exclusion zone” in southern Lebanon.

“We think the best solution for disarming Hezbollah is to make an exclusion zone with the retreat of the Israeli army on one side and the deployment of the Lebanese Army on the other, reinforced by the UN troops,” he said.

UN secretary general said Europe has agreed "to provide the backbone of the force.”

Earlier, Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, announced that the EU would contribute between 5,600 and 6,900 ground troops to the UN, with additional naval and logistic support.

Speaking at the press conference, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, called on Israel to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Ending the blockade has been linked to forming a UN force. Israel said it is willing to lift the blockade after the international force and Lebanese army deploy.

This is almost half of the 15,000 troops mentioned in UN Security Council resolution 1701, adopted on 14 August and which brought a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah..

Annan said that contributions by EU states will allow the United Nations to deploy a “credible” force to the region.

The UN secretary general has left Brussels Friday for a Mideast tour which will include talks in Iran and Syria.

He said he has maintained contacts with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian president Bashir el Assad.

The UN force would be able to deploy along the Lebanese-Syrian border to help prevent weapons shipments to Hezbollah, but only if the Lebanese government asked for such help, Annan said in response to a question. “Lebanon, to date, as neither asked for this nor ruled it out,” he added.

Annan said the United Nations had received serious offers of troops from countries outside Europe as well, including Malaysia, Bengladesh and Indonesia, and that he was consulting with Turkey about whether it would contribute.

Annan announced that the expanded force will be commanded on the ground by France until February 2007 and later by Italy.

In addition, the UN will appoint an Italian general to head a strategic office at United Nations headquarters in New York that will provide military guidance to the Unifil.

“The cessation of hostilities has, on the whole, held remarkably well,” he said. “Israeli forces are withdrawing progressively from south Lebanon, and the Lebanese Armed Forces are moving in.”

Italy will dispatch 3,000 troops, France 2,000 and Spain 1,000, with smaller countries, like Belgium and Finland, making up the rest.

The conflict began 12 July after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed 8 others in a raid near the Israeli-Lebanese border.