Lebanese President Joseph Aoun left Beirut yesterday for Washington, where he is expected to hold key meetings with President Donald Trump and other senior U.S. officials in an effort to bolster the ceasefire with Israel and advance negotiations over Israel’s military presence in southern Lebanon.
The visit follows a fresh round of diplomatic discussions involving Israeli and Lebanese representatives in Italy and marks the first trip by a Lebanese president to the White House since Michel Sleiman met with then-President Barack Obama in 2009.
Officials from Lebanon’s presidency said Aoun’s meetings in Washington will focus on talks “with several American officials on the situation in Lebanon and ways to strengthen the ceasefire,” while also seeking “the withdrawal of Israel from the Lebanese regions it occupies”.
After arriving in the United States, the Lebanese presidency announced that Aoun is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday before sitting down with Trump on Tuesday.
The diplomatic effort comes as the United States continues to broker indirect negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, which do not maintain formal diplomatic relations. The talks, launched in April, are aimed at reaching a lasting resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization.
On June 26, negotiators meeting in Washington reached a preliminary framework that calls for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon, after which the Lebanese military would deploy in the area, beginning with two designated pilot zones.
Implementation of the agreement, however, remains dependent on the disarmament of Hezbollah. The terrorist group has flatly rejected both the proposed framework and the negotiations surrounding it.
A U.S. official said that during follow-up meetings held this week in Rome, Israeli and Lebanese negotiators “agreed on the structure and guidelines” needed to move forward with establishing the pilot zones.
Meanwhile, a Lebanese military official told AFP that the Lebanese army has already begun increasing troop deployments and patrols in villages near areas where Israeli forces are still operating, including the village of Froun in the Bint Jbeil district, in preparation for a possible transition.
At the same time, Hezbollah organized a public rally yesterday in the coastal city of Tyre to demonstrate its continued opposition to the diplomatic process.
Although Aoun has agreed to pursue indirect negotiations with Israel, he has repeatedly rejected the possibility of a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, an idea that has been floated by Trump.
The Lebanese president has insisted that ending the fighting must take precedence over any direct political engagement between the two countries.
Earlier this month, Aoun again dismissed the possibility of meeting Netanyahu, declaring, “If we were to find ourselves in the same room, I would immediately leave.”
{Matzav.com}