US has still not agreed to Aoun and Haykal's visit, report says

The U.S. has still not agreed to a visit by Lebanon's President and Army chief, al-Akhbar newspaper said Tuesday.

The pro-Hezbollah daily said that the U.S. would rather exert more pressure on Lebanon and would not welcome President Joseph Aoun and Army chief Joseph Haykal before Lebanon meets the American conditions.

Haykal was scheduled to visit Washington last month but the trip was called off after U.S. political and military officials cancelled their meetings with him just hours before he was scheduled to depart.

Those who cancelled included influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who in a statement on X slammed what he said was Haykal's "weak almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah".

Graham also criticized an army statement that referred to Israel as the "enemy" -- a standard term even in official discourse in Lebanon, which has been technically at war with Israel since 1948.

A Western diplomatic source in Beirut meanwhile told Kuwaiti newspaper al-Anbaa that the main condition of the envoys who visited Lebanon this month was Hezbollah's disarmament. In the meetings, the envoys voiced the international community's support to Lebanon but urged Lebanon to take reciprocal steps in return.