Lebanon and Israel have resumed talks in Rome, with Beirut hoping for progress towards securing an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon under a United States-brokered deal, although expectations for swift progress remain low.
Officials from both countries began two days of meetings at the US embassy in the Italian capital on Tuesday to discuss how to implement the framework agreement aimed at ending the war in Lebanon, Lebanese officials told the Reuters news agency.
One of the officials said moving the talks to Rome would make it easier for both countries’ delegations to consult their governments for guidance as they negotiated.
The Lebanese presidency stated that President Joseph Aoun instructed the Lebanese delegation to demand the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from two designated areas in southern Lebanon before any further discussions with the Israeli delegation at the meeting.
On Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that Italy had offered to host the talks to continue work towards a genuine ceasefire in Lebanon.
“We are also very pleased that Rome can serve as the venue for these meetings. In this way, our capital becomes a capital of peace,” Tajani said ahead of a European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday.
The talks come after a meeting in Washington, DC on June 26 produced an agreement that called for an end to Israel’s war on Lebanon, the disarmament of armed groups – an apparent reference to Hezbollah – the deployment of Lebanese troops to the south and the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces.
But deadly Israeli attacks have continued, and Hezbollah has rejected the agreement as well as efforts to disarm it. Israel, meanwhile, has said its troops would remain in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah remained armed.
Since Hezbollah and Israel returned to war on March 2 amid the wider regional conflict, US-led diplomacy has moved forward despite strong objections from the Iran-aligned group.
In a deal between the US and Iran in mid-June, the two countries agreed that fighting would stop on all fronts, including Israel’s war on Lebanon. But Israel sees its conflict with Hezbollah as a matter of national security and has continued to carry out attacks.
Israel’s military is occupying what it describes as a “buffer zone” about 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon along the entire length of the Israeli border. Israeli officials say the zone is necessary to protect northern Israeli communities from attacks launched by Hezbollah.
In comments published by his office on Monday, Aoun said he hoped the Rome meeting would yield “tangible and practical steps on the ground” to implement the agreement and that it would see Israel begin its troop pull-out so that the Lebanese army could deploy to the south.
One of the Lebanese officials said the country’s delegation to Tuesday’s talks would seek the gradual and sequential withdrawal of Israeli troops “one zone after another”, referring to the “pilot zone” project under which Hezbollah would disarm, Israeli forces would withdraw and Lebanese troops would deploy area by area in southern Lebanon.
The June 26 agreement said two zones had been identified as a starting point. A US official said last week that the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) was coordinating with both Lebanon and Israel to launch the pilot zones. A US military delegation was in Lebanon over the weekend to discuss the plan in detail with Lebanon’s army, sources told Reuters.
Israel’s military has forced the local Lebanese population from their homes and carried out controlled explosions of entire villages. It says it is destroying infrastructure, including underground tunnels, used by Hezbollah.
More than 4,000 Lebanese have been killed and more than a million displaced by Israel’s war on Lebanon since March, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
At least 32 Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed by Hezbollah, most of them in southern Lebanon, since Israel began its attacks.
