The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah will not abide by any agreement that may result from direct Lebanon-Israel talks in the United States, negotiations it strongly opposes, a senior Hezbollah official said Monday.
Wafiq Safa, a senior member of Hezbollah’s political council, spoke ahead of talks expected in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the US. It will be the first time in decades that envoys from Lebanon and Israel, who do not have diplomatic relations, meet face-to-face in direct talks.
“As for the results of this negotiation between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy, we are not at all interested or concerned with them,” said Safa. Associated Press.
“We are not bound by what they agree to,” he added in a rare interview with international media. He spoke next to a cemetery as an Israeli drone buzzed overhead.
Historic negotiations at a sensitive time
Lebanese officials are seeking to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war in talks with the US.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has said the goal is the disarmament of Hezbollah and a possible peace deal between Lebanon and Israel. Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said Monday that there will be no ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Separately, at last weekend’s US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan, Iran has sought to include Lebanon in any ceasefire agreement with the US, Israel, and the US has insisted that Lebanon would not be part of it.
Hours after Tehran and Washington announced a ceasefire last Wednesday, Israel launched more than 100 strikes across Lebanon, including on densely packed residential and commercial areas in central Beirut.
And although the US-Iran talks broke down without an agreement, Safa said Hezbollah has been informed that Iran “was able to obtain a cessation of attacks” across the administrative region of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, including the southern suburbs of Beirut – a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh.
Israeli attacks on Beirut and its southern suburbs have stopped since Wednesday, but intense fighting has continued in southern Lebanon.
