Lebanon, Israel agree on countries that could verify Hezbollah disarmament — official

Lebanon, Israel agree on countries that could verify Hezbollah disarmament — official

Lebanon and Israel have agreed on a shortlist of countries that could send troops to verify the disarmament of Hezbollah under a US-brokered agreement, a Lebanese official said on Friday, with the United States due to pick countries from the list.

The official declined to identify any of the countries on the shortlist or say how many there were. Another Lebanese official and two foreign diplomats have previously told Reuters that Israel and the United States had vetoed France.

The list was produced during meetings between Lebanon and Israel at the US embassy in Rome this week, the latest round of talks on how to implement a June 26 deal that links Israel's progressive withdrawal of troops from Lebanon to the disarmament of Hezbollah, which would be "verified" by a third party.

Hezbollah is not a party to the agreement and has refused to give up its arsenal.

"We have reached a short list of countries. We decided which parties were impossible for each and set the potential actors," the Lebanese official said. "The Americans will now decide, and could pick more than one country."

There was no immediate response from Israel's Foreign Ministry to Reuters questions on the shortlist. When asked about the shortlist, a US State Department spokesperson said the talks were "productive on the technical and expert levels" but did not provide further details.

Lebanon rejects private security firms

The Lebanese official said Beirut had rejected an earlier proposal for private security companies to serve as third-party verifiers of Hezbollah's disarmament.

"All of the actors proposed are countries. We still need to discuss exactly how this would work, how many forces would be deployed and how they would work with the Lebanese army," the official said.

A framework for the presence of foreign troops in Lebanon would also need to be agreed, possibly by housing them under a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, whose mandate is due to expire at the end of this year.

The Lebanese official said that would require a new UN Security Council resolution, which the US and Israel were now willing to consider in what he called a breakthrough. Other possibilities include housing the troops under a separate UN agency or through a memorandum of understanding with Lebanon.

The talks did not, however, produce an agreement on the next area from which Israeli troops would withdraw so that Lebanese troops could take control. Beirut had proposed Bint Jbeil and Khiam, two large towns that have been hit hard by air strikes and where Israeli troops have razed entire neighborhoods.

The next round of talks is set for early September, the official said.

A State Department spokesperson said Thursday that the sides were "a lot closer on what needs to be done to advance and expand the pilot zone process," after Jerusalem and Beirut wrapped up their seventh round of direct talks.

The negotiations picked up amid the heaviest cross-border fighting in weeks, with the IDF striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon after two IDF soldiers were killed by an explosive on Wednesday.

But a Lebanese presidential source told AFP on Thursday that Israel had refused in talks to withdraw from more areas of south Lebanon unless the Lebanese army had full control of the initial two "pilot zones."

The Lebanese source told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the talks had "not yielded definitive results regarding the pilot zones."

"Lebanon is keen to move on to new areas, whereas the Israeli side insists on verifying [the implementation in] the first two zones before proceeding to the next stage," the source added.