Ambassador Siefker-Eberle hands over a Navigation Simulator to Lebanese Navy

The German Ambassador to Lebanon, Mrs. Birgitta Siefker-Eberle, handed over a navigation simulator to the Lebanese Navy on 10 March 2011, at Jounieh Naval School, in the presence of General Hanna, representing H.E. General Kahwajji, chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and Admiral Baroudi, chief of the Lebanese Navy.

The state-of-the-art navigation simulator (worth 170.300 Euros) will be used for basic education of soldiers as well as for advanced training to bring navigation knowledge to a new level. It will also be used to teach the staff of the coastal radar stations. 10 soldiers can be trained at the simulator at the same time. 10 courses of 2 weeks time can be held within one year. The simulator will thus be an important instrument for the education of Lebanese navy soldiers.

- Support within bilateral cooperation

Germany started to support the Lebanese Navy after the war of 2006. Germany donated three boats to Lebanon that enable the Navy to monitor its own coastal waters.

The backbone of this observation on land is the highly modern coastal radar system which has been financed by the German Foreign Office with about 2 million Euros. Part of this donation (1.1 mio Euros including the simulator) aims at equipping and upgrading the coastal radar system.

Germany has also been very active in training Lebanese navy soldiers. 11 German training teams have come to Lebanon since 2007 to teach navigation, the use of the German equipment, ship security and, most recently, the use of the navigation simulator – a state of the art instrument.

- Contribution to UNIFIL-MTF

Apart from this very successful bilateral Navy cooperation, Germany has also been a big contributor to the UNIFIL-Maritime Task Force from the very beginning. There are currently three German boats and around 230 German soldiers serving in the mission that was

established by UN security Council resolution 1701 in 2006.