Lebanon’s president has sought to allay concerns over the negotiations between his country and Israel, following a seventh round of heated talks in Rome.
President Joseph Aoun said in a post on X that negotiators and he will not allow Israel to remain “on a single inch of our land, nor a single soldier of its army to stay on our soil,” re-stating Beirut’s central demand in the negotiations.
The seventh round of talks, held last week in Rome, ended without any apparent progress on expanding the number of “pilot zones” in Lebanon – small pockets of territory from which Israel withdraws its troops and hands over control to the Lebanese armed forces, on the understanding that the area will be kept free of Hezbollah militants.
An Israeli source told CNN on Monday that no date had been set for the next round of talks, but Lebanon’s president, in his post on X, re-stated his commitment to a negotiated solution.
“We always hear slogans saying that what is taken by force will only be recovered by force, but the facts on the ground have proven the falsehood of this saying,” he said.
