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Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, where he declared that his country will permanently end hostilities with Israel and asked for backing in his efforts to disarm Hezbollah. At the meeting, Trump said he would be open to speaking directly with the Iran-backed terror group if Beirut asked.
Aoun’s visit came just hours after Lebanese troops deployed to an area in southern Lebanon that Israeli troops had withdrawn from, in the first test of the US-backed “pilot zone” plan for the eventual full withdrawal of the IDF from the south, pending the disarmament of Hezbollah in the area. The handover was not without incident, however, as the Lebanese army reported Israeli fire toward their troops, which the IDF said were “warning shots” at Lebanese soldiers who encroached on the Israeli-held buffer zone.
Meeting Aoun at the White House, Trump said Lebanon had been “a very mistreated country” that had been “hit hard” for decades.
“We’re going to help it. We’re going to help it a lot,” he told reporters while sitting next to Aoun. “We are going to solve a lot of problems. We’ve already solved some of them for Lebanon. There’s a Hezbollah problem, but we’ve done some things that I think the world will take notice.”
“I would speak to Hezbollah. I speak to everybody. I’ll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t be speaking to, and things work out,” Trump said, adding that he would only talk to the Iran-backed terror group if Aoun asked him to do so. “If the president wanted me to speak to Hezbollah, I would.”
Asked whether the US would provide assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces tasked with disarming Hezbollah, Trump was noncommittal, saying that he would be discussing the matter with Aoun privately.
“We have some very concrete plans already in store for that. Others [may be] going in and helping, but [Lebanon is] also becoming much more self-sufficient,” Trump said.
Aoun, the first Lebanese president invited to Washington since 2009, asked Trump for political support and continued backing for the Lebanese army, which has begun deploying in southern areas under a US-backed framework agreement with Israel.
That framework, signed on June 26 after several rounds of direct negotiations, envisions a phased Israeli pullback from positions in south Lebanon, and looks to pave the path towards eventual peace between the two countries, which have no formal relations and have been in an official state of war since Israel’s founding in 1948.
“We need to support the LAF,” Aoun said, referring to the Lebanese Armed Forces. “Without the LAF, everything will collapse.”
“We don’t want that. I think President Trump doesn’t want that,” Aoun said, recalling that the LAF’s collapse in 1975 led to the emergence of militia groups, a civil war and the Palestinian takeover of the country’s south, which was used to launch attacks on Israel.
The Lebanese president, a former army commander, said the military was “the backbone of security and stability” and the country’s most trusted institution.
Aoun also praised Trump as a “great president,” leading the US leader to smile and quip: “He knows how to get to me.”
Aoun went on to hail the framework deal that the US brokered last month that has “the ultimate objective of ending the state of hostility between Lebanon and Israel forever.”
“This will be your legacy. Together, we’ll be able to achieve this objective,” Aoun said.
“It’s about time for Lebanon and for the whole region to be stable and secure. Your vision is peace. Your vision is stability, and I think my vision coincides with your vision,” he added, to which Trump nodded in agreement.
IDF says it fired ‘warning shots’ at LAF near pilot zone
Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese military accused Israeli troops of firing at its soldiers as they were in the process of deploying to Zawtar al-Gharbiya, the first town that the IDF has withdrawn from as part of the gradual US-backed redeployment plan.
There were no reports of injuries in the incident.
According to the IDF, its forces fired warning shots after Lebanese soldiers crossed into the Israel-held buffer zone outside the actual pilot zone.
Troops stationed in the Zawtar al-Sharqiyah area identified LAF soldiers and heavy machinery crossing into the IDF’s buffer zone by around 150 meters (some 500 feet) and “breaching barriers,” the IDF said.
The LAF was supposed to deploy to the adjacent town of Zawtar al-Gharbiya, following the IDF’s withdrawal.
The IDF said that the LAF’s actions were “contrary to the understandings between the parties,” and that the troops in the area “fired warning shots into the air only, which did not endanger the Lebanese army personnel, to distance them from the area.”
The LAF soldiers then withdrew from the area.
The IDF said it calls on the Lebanese army to “continue operating in accordance with the understandings and within the agreed areas.”
“Any deviation from these areas without prior coordination could endanger its forces,” the Israeli army added.
Asked about the incident during his White House presser with Aoun, Trump said he would look into it further before commenting.
Asked whether he wants Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanon and whether there is a timeline for such a pull-out, Trump was noncommittal, but said Israel is “in the process of doing that.”
“They’re in the process of redeploying other sections,” Trump added.
The Israeli withdrawal and Lebanese deployment into Zawtar al-Gharbiya was the first test of the pilot, which Lebanon hopes will enable it to restore control over a strip of land about 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep into the country that remains occupied by Israeli troops in a self-declared “security zone.”
Dozens of villages have been razed in that area, and public infrastructure has been destroyed, including hospitals, power stations and water pumps, amid fighting with Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of Lebanese who call the area home have been unable to return.
Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the most recent round of war in early March, when it attacked Israel in support of its patron Tehran, two days after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Relentless Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks disrupted the lives of tens of thousands of Israelis in the north of the country, causing deaths, injuries and damage.
More than 4,300 people have since been killed in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities, in figures that do not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The IDF estimates that over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed over that period.
The post Meeting Trump in DC, Aoun says Lebanon will end hostility with Israel ‘forever’ appeared first on The Times of Israel.
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