Peacekeeping Day: Gen. Serino, Italian Army CoS, has talks in NY, meets Ambassador Massari

NEW YORK, MAY 28 – While in New York for official talks at the United Nation, the Italian Army Chief of Staff, General Pietro Serino, had a fruitful meeting with the Italian Permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Maurizio Massari. General Serino is in New York to attend events organized for the International Peacekeeping Day. His presentations will focus on Italy’s strong collaboration with UN missions and its convinced support for UN peacekeeping.

With about 1000 men and women serving mostly in Southern Lebanon with UNIFIL, Italy is the first troops contributor to UN missions among Western Countries. It is also the seventh largest contributor to the peacekeeping budget. At the UN in New York, Italy co-chairs with Bangladesh the LEAF Group of Friends, committed to advancing environmental management in the field.

Peacekeeping Day is “an international day to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism, dedication, and courage and to honor the memory of those nearly 4,200 who have lost their lives in the cause of peace since 1948, including 135 last year. It is celebrated annually on May 29. The theme for this year’s Day is “People. Peace. Progress. The Power of Partnerships.”

The first UN peacekeeping mission was established on 29 May 1948, when the Security Council authorized the deployment of a small number of UN military observers to the Middle East to form the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Since then, more than 1 million women and men have served in 72 UN peacekeeping operations, directly impacting the lives of millions of people and saving countless lives. Today, UN Peacekeeping deploys more than 87,000 military, police and civilian personnel in 12 operations. (@OnuItalia)