BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday said the next round of talks with Israel will begin on December 19, calling the reaction to initial negotiations this week “positive.”
“It is natural that the first session would not be highly productive, but it paved the way for upcoming sessions that will begin on the 19th of this month,” he said, according to information minister Paul Morcos at the end of a cabinet meeting.
Aoun also said reactions to the first round of talks on Wednesday were “positive” and said the direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese civilian representatives, the first in decades, were aimed at avoiding a “second war.”
The Lebanese head of state stressed, according to Morcos, “the need for the language of negotiation — not the language of war — to prevail,” and that there would be no concession over Lebanon’s sovereignty.
“There is no other option but negotiation. This is the reality, and this is what history has taught us about wars,” he said, according to Morcos.
On Friday Aoun will receive members of the UN Security Council and US envoy Morgan Ortagus, when he said he would urge them to help talks with Israel succeed.
His comments came as Israeli raids hit southern Lebanon on Thursday, with its military saying it was striking Hezbollah weapons storage facilities.
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon. Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, but the Iran-backed group has rejected the idea.
Aoun said the UN delegation would head to southern Lebanon to check “the situation on the ground and see the real picture of what is happening there,” while the army continues its work to implement the plan to dismantle Hezbollah’s weapons.