About UN Peacekeeping Forces 

• • The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are employed by the UN to maintain or re-establish peace in an area of armed conflict. 
  • The UN may engage in conflicts between states as well as in struggles within states. The UN acts as an impartial third party in order to prepare the ground for a settlement of the issues that have provoked armed conflict. 
  • The three basic principles that guide U.N.’s Peacekeeping missions are:

• Consent of the parties

• Impartiality

• Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.

• The UN Peacekeeping Forces may only be employed when both parties to a conflict accept their presence. 
• The Peacekeeping Forces are subordinate to the leadership of the United Nations. They are normally deployed as a consequence of a UN Security Council decision. However, on occasion, the initiative has been taken by the General Assembly. Operational control belongs to the Secretary-General and his secretariat.
• India has been among the largest troop-contributing countries to the U.N. peacekeeping missions. 
• The first UN peacekeeping mission was a team of observers deployed to the Middle East in 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.