Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, announced this Wednesday that Rome will host a new round of talks between Israel and Lebanon on August 4, amidst the ongoing contact process between both parties to achieve a peace agreement and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
“A new session of dialogue between Lebanon and Israel will be held in Rome on August 4,” he stated in an appearance before Parliament. “This is an important achievement, the result of patient foreign policy work that builds bridges and never raises walls,” he maintained, as reported by the Italian newspaper ‘La Repubblica’.
Thus, he stressed that “the ultimate goal is to achieve peace and full control of the territory by Lebanese institutions,” while adding that the previous round held last week in Rome “allowed for significant progress in defining the ‘pilot zones’,” where the Lebanese Army will be deployed after Israel’s withdrawal.
Tajani’s words come on a day when Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited the first “pilot zone” in southern Lebanon, from where he promised to work towards the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli troops from the territory of the Asian country.
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“We are here to ensure that we have begun to dedicate all state resources to facilitate their return,” he promised the population displaced by the Israeli invasion, launched in early March after projectiles were fired by the Shiite party-militia Hezbollah in response to the offensive by Israel and the United States against Iran.
The United States and Israel confirmed on Monday the start of the operation to withdraw from the delimited areas in southern Lebanon under the agreement. “As part of this pilot program, teams from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the U.S. Army, and the Lebanese Armed Forces are carrying out coordination and planning tasks for the continued implementation of the agreement,” explained the Israeli Army, which nevertheless stressed that it “will respond firmly to any violation of the agreement.”
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