WASHINGTON: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun pressed US President Donald Trump during White House talks on Tuesday on the urgent need for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, calling it essential to consolidating stability and allowing the Lebanese state to extend its sovereignty through its own forces alone, the Lebanese Presidency said.
The Media Office of the Presidency said the bilateral meeting, held at Trump’s invitation, reaffirmed the historic partnership between Lebanon and the US and focused on the security, political and economic priorities needed to bolster Lebanon’s stability and prosperity.
The president also briefed Trump on the catastrophic repercussions of the recent war on Lebanon, citing human and economic losses and severe damage to infrastructure across Lebanese territory.
The recent round of fighting which erupted on March 2 between Israel and Hezbollah has killed over 4,300 Lebanese, wounded over 12,000, displaced over a million people and gutted an economy already in ruin.
Aoun and Trump discussed bolstering American support for the Lebanese Armed Forces and expanding cooperation across all fields, including backing Lebanon’s economic recovery and reconstruction and encouraging American investment.
Immediately following the two presidents’ meeting in the Oval Office, Trump issued a directive to resume direct air travel between the two countries, ending a 41-year ban which was introduced by the Reagan administration in 1985 following the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Hezbollah.
President Trump posted on Truth Social: “I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all US airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land.”
The talks have also resulted in an accord to maintain coordination on implementing what was agreed and to follow up on joint security, defense and economic initiatives aimed at strengthening Lebanon’s stability, the Presidency said.
At a dinner hosted by Lebanese Ambassador Hamada Maawad in honor of Aoun and the accompanying Lebanese delegation, attended by members of Congress and US administration officials, Aoun said Lebanon could not be safe or united except as one state with one army protecting all Lebanese without discrimination.
He said the Lebanese model deserved protection not for Lebanon alone but for the region, describing it as resting on the same foundation on which the US was built.
Aoun also said Hezbollah’s weapons could be resolved if the requirements were addressed honestly — namely the removal of the Israeli occupation, the Lebanese army’s assumption of full control, and a state-managed reconstruction program.
Back in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam traveled to the southern village of Zawtar Al-Gharbiya, where Israeli troops had withdrawn as part of a US-brokered Lebanese-Israeli agreement signed in late June.
Salam planted a Lebanese flag near a destroyed building in the town, one of several “pilot zones” meant to demonstrate that the Lebanese army could take control of areas previously held by Hezbollah as Israeli forces pull back.
“We will continue mobilizing our political and diplomatic efforts to secure a complete Israeli withdrawal from the south,” Salam said during the visit.
He was accompanied by Lebanon’s defense minister and senior military officials and pledged that the government would begin rebuilding destroyed homes and infrastructure in the village.
