Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has drawn a clear distinction between peace and normalisation with Israel, stating that Beirut\u2019s goal is the former. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Salam dismissed speculation about a potential encounter with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as \u201cpremature,\u201d emphasising that \u201cany high-level meeting with the Israeli side requires major preparations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Context of past talks and future conditions<\/p>\n
Salam noted that Lebanon has previously engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, but current circumstances remain unripe for high-level discussions. He insisted that consolidating the existing ceasefire \u201cwill form the basis for any new round of negotiations that could be held in Washington.\u201d Lebanon\u2019s \u201cminimum demand,\u201d he said, is \u201ca timetable for Israel\u2019s withdrawal.\u201d He also confirmed that authorities plan to develop a framework ensuring that all weapons fall exclusively under state control.<\/p>\n
Ongoing hostilities despite truce<\/p>\n
Two rounds of US-brokered talks have already taken place in Washington on April 14 and April 23, with a third session expected next week. However, a ceasefire announced on April 17 and extended until May 17 has not halted Israeli military action. Official figures show that since March 2, Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 2,704 people, wounded 8,311, and displaced more than 1.6 million \u2014 roughly one-fifth of the country\u2019s population. Homes in dozens of villages continue to be demolished, echoing the devastation seen in Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has drawn a clear distinction between peace and normalisation with Israel, stating that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3065,37,93,2405,28656],"class_list":{"0":"post-101176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lebanon","8":"tag-ceasefire","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-lebanon","11":"tag-peace","12":"tag-salam"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116529432111011050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}