Negotiations Between Lebanon and Israel to Start Next Tuesday
Israeli and Lebanese envoys are due to meet in Washington on Tuesday. Both sides are under pressure from Donald Trump to end the fighting, which is also a key demand from Iran in parallel talks scheduled for Saturday in Pakistan.
Israel stepped up air strikes on Lebanon after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel on 2 March, three days after the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran. It later expanded its ground operation in southern Lebanon and ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians to leave areas it considers Hezbollah strongholds.
A week after the start of the current war, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed willingness to enter direct negotiations with Israel and indicated readiness to move towards normalization of relations.
Israel rejected the offer as belated, arguing that the Lebanese government, while seeking to disarm Hezbollah, cannot act against it without risking civil war.
Israel’s position changed after the US and Iran reached a ceasefire agreement on Tuesday, with Iran insisting that Israel halt attacks in Lebanon before the talks in Pakistan. Trump subsequently urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Thursday to ease the attacks, a source familiar with the situation said. Later on Thursday, Netanyahu announced that Israel would begin negotiations with Lebanon.
The talks are due to take place on Tuesday in Washington between Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter and his Lebanese counterpart Nada Hamadeh Moawad.
The two sides, however, have given different accounts of the content of the talks. Lebanon said the representatives agreed to meet at the US State Department to discuss declaring a ceasefire and determining the start of US-brokered bilateral negotiations. The Israeli embassy in Washington said the talks would constitute the start of “formal peace negotiations” and that Israel had refused to discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah.