Ceasefire holds ahead of fifth round of Lebanon-Israel talks
After a first round of U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland on ending the Middle East war, mediators Pakistan and Qatar said on Monday that Tehran and Washington had agreed to set up a "de-confliction cell" with Lebanon "to ensure the adherence of the termination of military operations" there.
Under U.S. pressure, Lebanese officials began direct talks with Israel in April in Washington, and a fifth round of negotiations is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
The goal of talks will be "to end the cycle of violence for good," and "advance a comprehensive peace and security agreement between the two countries," a U.S. State Department official told AFP on Monday.
"We are enabling Israel and Lebanon to negotiate as two sovereign states and to find a way to have peace and security," the official said.
Lebanese authorities are seeking the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country and to separate the negotiations from the U.S.-Iran deal.
"We negotiate for ourselves, and we do not accept any other party doing so for us," President Joseph Aoun said Monday.
"We welcome any assistance that comes from any country to end the war, particularly as the situation in the region is interconnected," he added.
"But there is a big difference between trying to help us and interfering in our internal affairs," he said, alluding to Iran, which through Hezbollah has long wielded significant political influence in Lebanon.
- Ceasefire appears to hold -
Tilak Pokharel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, said Monday evening that a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be holding.
"We have not detected trajectories from either side since yesterday," he said. "We have also not seen airstrikes," although he added that peacekeepers "continue to observe air(space) violations and IDF ground movements."
An Associated Press photographer in the area of Nabatiyeh, which saw intense strikes and fighting in the days before the new truce took hold over the weekend, described complete calm in the area Monday. Few displaced people had returned to the heavily damaged city of Nabatiyeh, he said, but many entered surrounding villages as soon as bulldozers finished clearing the roads.
Source: Associated Press, Agence France Presse
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