Italian President in Lebanon

Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro arrived in Beirut Wednesday for an official visit to Lebanon, the second by a foreign head of state since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Scalfaro, who is heading an official delegation from Italy is scheduled to meet during the four-day visit with Lebanese political and spiritual leaders. He will address Parliament and visit south Lebanon on Friday, where guerrillas are fighting a war of attrition against Israeli occupation forces.

He will also meet Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir and meet with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

In the south, he will inspect the Italian battalion of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon since 1978. Italy has some 50 troops in UNIFIL.

Scalfaro will be the second western head of state to visit Lebanon since the end of the civil war and the first to visit the south. The only other head of state to visit here was French President Jacques Chirac, who in 1996 twice visited Lebanon.

Lebanon imports more goods from Italy than any other country, with the volume of bilateral trade exceeding $1 billion annually.

The visit has added political and moral importance because it is limited to Lebanon only.