Negotiations do not mean concession or surrender

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun stressed today, Tuesday, that “negotiations do not mean concession or surrender.”

The National News Agency quoted Aoun as saying, during his reception today with a southern delegation, that he “bears responsibility for his decisions, and that diplomacy is a war without blood, while war is blood, destruction and devastation.”

Aoun stressed the preservation of rights and the importance of the Lebanese standing by their state in this particular circumstance.

On March 9, the President of Lebanon launched an initiative to put an end to the renewed Israeli escalation against Lebanon.

The initiative is based on a complete truce with a cessation of all Israeli attacks, providing support to the army, the army controlling areas of tension, confiscating all weapons from them, and initiating negotiations with Israel.

The US State Department held a tripartite meeting on April 14, with the participation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Counselor Michael Needham, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yehiel Laiter, and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamada Moawad, to discuss steps to launch direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.

US President Donald Trump announced that he held talks with Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that they agreed to begin a 10-day ceasefire, starting at midnight last Thursday. President Trump invited the leaders of Israel and Lebanon to the White House to hold the first high-level talks between the two countries since 1983.

The announcement of the ceasefire came after intense Israeli raids that targeted Lebanon since the second of last March, resulting in the killing of 2,196 citizens, the wounding of 7,185, and the displacement of more than a million citizens from the targeted places.