WASHINGTON – The United States will host new talks Thursday between Israel and Lebanon aimed at encouraging an agreement, a US official told AFP, after the start of a shaky US-brokered ceasefire.
The talks will take place at the State Department in Washington, again at the level of ambassadors.
“We will continue to facilitate direct, good-faith discussions between the two governments,” the State Department official said Monday on customary condition of anonymity.
The ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon, which have no diplomatic relations, met on April 14 at the State Department.
Three days later, President Donald Trump announced a 10-day truce pausing the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shia armed movement that has fired rockets in response to the Israeli-US attack on its patron Iran.
Sporadic violence has continued despite the truce.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that his country’s campaign in Lebanon relied both on military and diplomatic pressure to disarm Iran-allied Hezbollah.
“The overarching goal of the campaign in Lebanon is to disarm Hezbollah and remove the threat to the northern communities (of Israel), through a combination of military and diplomatic measures,” Katz said during a ceremony marking Israel’s national day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terror.
Though a truce between Israel and Lebanon took effect Friday, Israeli troops are still present and actively fighting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon’s south, with Katz saying Sunday that troops would use “full force” if threatened.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that planned talks with Israel aim to end hostilities and the occupation in the south, despite the rejection of negotiations by Hezbollah and its supporters.
“The choice to negotiate aims to stop hostilities, end the Israeli occupation of southern regions and deploy the (Lebanese) army all the way to the internationally recognized southern borders” with Israel, Aoun said in a statement.
The truce in Lebanon was also one of Iran’s conditions for resuming talks with Washington to extend their separate ceasefire and work out the terms of a lasting peace.
