BEIRUT, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The Lebanese government undertook on Thursday to stop smuggling across Lebanon's border with Syria, playing down a controversy between Syria and Israel over whether U.N. forces should deploy there to stop arms shipments.

Syria threatened on Wednesday to close the border if the United Nations deploys troops there as part of its mission to enforce a truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Israel says it will not lift a sea and air blockade of Lebanon unless a reinforced U.N. peacekeeping force helps the Lebanese army control the border so that no new weapons reach Hizbollah in the south.

The dispute has the Lebanese government caught in the middle. Its priority is to reopen the country to the world but it has limited influence over either Syria and Israel.

Culture Minister Tareq Mitri, who led the Lebanese delegation in truce talks at the United Nations this month, said: "The Lebanese government is working hard to secure the border and lift the (Israeli) blockade."

"The Lebanese stance is clear. The sovereignty of any state includes securing its border crossings, preventing any smuggling attempts, and this is what the Lebanese state is planning to do," he told Voice of Lebanon radio.

"The rest of this issue falls into the category of ... provoking emotions and fears," he added.

The truce came into effect on Aug. 14, ending a 34-day war between by Israel and Hizbollah. More than 1,100 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Lebanon and 157 in Israel.

But the ceasefire is fragile and eyewitnesses said that Israeli warplanes flew the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon on Thursday morning -- an act Lebanon considers a truce violation.

TECHNICAL HELP

A squad of Israeli troops returned to the Lebanese border village of Houla on Thursday morning, security sources said. Israeli forces had withdrawn from Houla after the truce came into effect.

A Lebanese government official who asked not to be named told Reuters that Lebanon had asked the United Nations for technical help to monitor the border crossings but not to deploy any of the U.N. troops along the border with Syria.

Asked if the government would ask for U.N. forces right on the border, he said: "The decision is up to the cabinet and it has not taken it yet. It depends on the situation."

A spokesman for the existing U.N. force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL, said he was not aware of a Lebanese request but it could have gone through another channel, such as New York.

The Lebanese army has started to deploy along parts of the Syrian border but the United Nations is finding it hard to muster more troop contingents to strengthen UNIFIL.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht visited Beirut on Thursday and promised to take part in the force.

"He informed me that Belgium will contribute to the UNIFIL force in the south, but the numbers and the mechanism depend on the (European Union) meeting in Brussels tomorrow," Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told reporters.

European Union president Finland said on Thursday it hopes to see the first reinforcements deployed in Lebanon in a week. France has already sent a contingent of 200 to bolster the U.N. force in Lebanon.

The U.N. resolution setting the terms for the ceasefire calls for the removal from south Lebanon of armed personnel other than those of UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.

But one of the two Hizbollah members of the cabinet, Labour Minister Trad Hamadeh, was quoted as saying that disarming Hizbollah was not the immediate priority.

"Hizbollah's arms are defensive. Once a national plan of defence for Lebanon is laid out, we will talk about arms," he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in an interview.

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