Hezbollah chief rejects disarmament, Lebanon to submit new plan by the end of the week • FRANCE 24

Hezbollah chief rejects disarmament, Lebanon to submit new plan by the end of the week • FRANCE 24

The US special envoy for Lebanon says Lebanese authorities will come up with a plan by the end of the month to convince Hezbollah to disarm. Thomas Barack says Israel will provide a counter proposal of its own. He added the Lebanese plan would not necessarily involve military action. For more on this story, we can go across to Rabat in uh Beirut. Uh so there’s a lot of developments here in Beirut when it comes to negotiations between Lebanon and Israel as well as the file of uh disarming Hezbollah. Uh today a high level uh Senate and Congress delegation from the US is visiting uh Lebanon accompanied by uh US envoy to Lebanon uh US ambassador to Turkey Tom Barack as well as US adviser to the United Nations mission of the US Morgan Ortegus. We know for a fact that they they came here to Beirut after a series of meetings both in Syria and in Israel. US Envoy Tom Barrett confirmed to Lebanese officials that Israel is ready to negotiate with Lebanon on a gradual withdrawal from Lebanese territory that it had occupied in the aftermath of the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in a stepbystep manner in such a way where Israel gradually withdraws from locations as the army advances its uh deployment in southern Lebanon and also advances in its disarming of Hezbollah. We know for a fact also that the Lebanese government has taken uh multiple decisions over the past few weeks related to maintaining monopoly of arms. That is the term used here in Lebanon. We’re expecting to see a plan by the Lebanese army in negotiations with the government of Lebanon sometime next week where the army proposes a plan for maintaining autonomy of arms. uh that plan will also be conveyed to the American counterparts who will also discuss it with the Israeli side. However, we’ve seen explicit statements from Sheikh Naim Kasim, Secretary General of Hezbollah, mentioning that Hezbollah refuses uh to disarm that and that also it is not ready to engage in any uh step by step negotiations with the Israeli and that Israel must first withdraw from all Lebanese territory before any negotiations on the state’s monotomy autonomy of arms.

On Monday, Israel signalled it would scale back its military presence in southern Lebanon if the Lebanese armed forces took action to disarm Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah, while the Iran-backed group reiterated its refusal to lay down its weapons. Lebanon then stated that it would present a plan aimed at persuading Hezbollah to disarm, with Israel expected to submit a corresponding framework for its military withdrawal, top U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Beiruty, Rawad Taha.
#Hezbollah #Lebanon #Israel

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