Israel Acknowledges Meeting with Lebanon, Describes it as "Positive" and Says it is Not Peace Negotiations

Translation and Follow-up by SadaNews - The Israeli Prime Minister's Office confirmed that under instructions from Benjamin Netanyahu, a meeting was held with Lebanon, sponsored by the United States, this morning in Nakoura.

Present at the meeting were the U.S. President's Advisor on Lebanon, Morgan Ortagus, along with relevant Lebanese civilian representatives. This was mentioned in the statement, translated by SadaNews.

According to the statement, the meeting took place in a positive atmosphere, and it was agreed to formulate ideas to enhance potential economic cooperation between Israel and Lebanon.

It was clarified that Israel emphasized that the disarmament of Hezbollah is required, unrelated to the enhancement of cooperation on economic matters.

The two parties agreed to continue the dialogue.

The Lebanese Presidency announced the appointment of former Ambassador Simon Karam to lead his country's delegation to the committee known as the "mechanism", which until Tuesday had consisted exclusively of military personnel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stated that the discussions within the ceasefire committee, which included a civilian representative from both Israel and Lebanon, have not yet reached the stage of "peace" negotiations.

Salam explained to reporters: "The ceasefire committee is the forum... for implementing the announcement of cessation of hostilities. We have not yet reached the stage of peace negotiations."

He mentioned that economic talks would be part of any normalization process with Israel, which should follow a peace agreement. He added to reporters that if the two countries commit to the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, "normalization will follow, but we are still far away."

The Lebanese Prime Minister announced that the country is open to the establishment of a ceasefire monitoring committee to verify the disarmament of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. He stated, "We have informed the committee that we are ready... for them to conduct verification procedures on the ground whenever they have any concerns or doubts... We are open to verification" by the committee.