Mexico is training a peacekeeping force of blue helmets

Mexico will send its first peacekeeping force of blue helmets in five years, said Ambassador Juan Sandoval Mendiolea, Alternate Representative at the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the U.N. and Ambassador Edmond Auguste Mulet, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

"We are training trainers, the richness of our initial involvement is that what they are learning now will be replicated here, they will bring their experience to share it," Sandoval said.

Ambassador Edmond Auguste Mulet said that eventually Mexico will participate with battalions, but that creating those capabilities will take years. “Eventually we would like to have officers of Mexico's General Staff at the headquarters in New York.

"It is very difficult to think that 122 countries take part in peacekeeping operations and Mexico doesn't,” he added.

Mexico's contribution to peacekeeping operations is also done through humanitarian aid: the country is participating in missions in Western Sahara and Haiti, and is preparing two officers who will be deployed to the mission in south Lebanon in November, he said.