The US Department of State announced that Lebanon and Israel have reached a framework agreement for establishing a ceasefire at the end of the fourth round of negotiations in Washington. According to the department, the agreement was mediated by Washington, and direct talks between the two sides are scheduled to resume on June 22 (1st of Saratan).<\/p>\n
According to US officials, the proposed plan includes the creation of “test zones” in southern Lebanon where the Lebanese army will have exclusive responsibility for security. Within this framework, the presence of any armed groups outside the Lebanese state’s structure in these zones will not be permitted. The gradual expansion of Lebanese army control could pave the way for a broader agreement on peace and security.<\/p>\n
Axios news outlet, citing informed sources, reported that the implementation of the ceasefire is conditional on Hezbollah halting its operations and withdrawing its forces from areas south of the Litani River. Meanwhile, Israel claims that ensuring its security and preserving its territorial sovereignty is only possible through the disarmament of Hezbollah and dismantling of the movement\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Notably, the US State Department statement did not mention Israel\u2019s repeated attacks and military incursions into Lebanese territory, an issue consistently raised by Lebanese officials as a main cause of heightened tensions. Washington emphasized that any agreement must be signed directly between the two sovereign governments with US support and stated its opposition to any parallel processes outside of direct negotiations.<\/p>\n
The US State Department also declared that Washington will continue to support the Lebanese army and strengthen its capabilities to effectively exercise sovereignty over the entire country. Conversely, Lebanon stressed the necessity of mutual respect for international borders, an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the preservation of territorial integrity and full government sovereignty over all national areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lebanon and Israel reach a US-mediated ceasefire framework; talks to resume June 22 with focus on Lebanese army security control and Hezbollah disarmament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}