VRG - (ANSA) - ROME, MAR 28 - Premier Giorgia Meloni said peace is not built not by talk, but by deterrence, as she visited Italian troops deployed in the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon on Thursday to thank them for their service before Easter. 

"You are not there (at home) during the holidays with your families, you are not there for your friends, your boyfriends and girlfriends, wives and husbands," the premier told the troops. 

"You give up everything to guarantee the peace which so many, especially at this time, are enjoying while sitting comfortably on their couches at home. "That is because peace is not built with sentiments and good words, peace is, above all, about deterrence and commitment, sacrifice". She described the Italian troops as a firewall in the region. 

"These are difficult days for the Middle East, Europe, the world," she said. "When there is a fire, there is always the same risk, that the flames fly quickly from one tree to another and cannot be put out. 

"We have to do everything that we possibly we can to avoid this risk and you are the moat, the sand barrier that helps keep the fire from advancing". She also stressed that the UNIFIL mission was important for Italy. 

"I came here today to say thank you, on behalf of Italy, for choosing to wear the uniform," she said. "Thank you for understanding that wearing that uniform entails knowing how to use both your head and your heart. 

"Thank you for studying, because you also knew that wearing that uniform requires professionalism and competence. "Thank you for agreeing to come all this way to Lebanon, where for decades our armed forces have been a fundamental part of the UNIFIL mission; a mission that is indispensable for our nation, in a land that it is the cradle of great civilisations, which for a long time has also been a model of the ability of different traditions and religious confessions to co-exist".