Report: Lebanon receives amended French proposal
Lebanon has received an amended proposal Paris had previously presented for a diplomatic resolution to the border conflict, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper sad.
French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné had visited Lebanon during the weekend but Speaker Nabih Berri said that Séjourné did not submit the paper during his visit and that the paper will be delivered to Lebanese officials by Tuesday.
Séjourné declined to provide more details about the latest version of France’s proposal ahead of his planned trip to Israel on Tuesday. He said he will have “consultations” with Israeli authorities to move toward an agreement.
"Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati have received the amended French paper," Nidaa al-Watan said Tuesday, adding that the two leaders will present the paper to Hezbollah.
Meanwhile sources told the Naccache-based MTV station that the French paper showed an American-French coordination as it proposed the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 over three stages similar to a plan that U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein had previously proposed.
The new French proposal is a "reformulation" of a paper that Lebanon had received in February from Paris as part of its efforts to pacify the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The February proposal involved Hezbollah withdrawing its forces 10 kilometers from the border with Israel, according to a Lebanese government official.
Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily strikes with Israeli forces in the border region — and sometimes beyond — for almost seven months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups but also including more than 50 civilians. Strikes by Hezbollah have killed at least 10 civilians and 12 soldiers in Israel. Tens of thousands are displaced on each side of the border.
Western diplomats have brought forward a series of proposals for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Most of those would hinge on Hezbollah moving its forces several kilometers from the border, a beefed-up Lebanese army presence and negotiations for Israeli forces to withdraw from disputed points along the border where Lebanon says Israel has been occupying small patches of Lebanese territory since it withdrew from the rest of south Lebanon in 2000.
The eventual goal is full implementation of resolution 1701 that brought to an end a brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
Hezbollah has signaled willingness to entertain the proposals but has said there will be no deal in Lebanon before there is a cease-fire in Gaza. Israeli officials, meanwhile, have said that a Gaza cease-fire does not automatically mean it will halt its strikes in Lebanon, even if Hezbollah does so.
Source: Naharnet
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