Report: Trump to ask Netanyahu to continue diplomacy with Lebanon

U.S. President Donald Trump will ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their upcoming meeting to continue the path of diplomacy with Lebanon, a media report said.

President Joseph Aoun and the Lebanese state have learned from Washington that Trump will call on Netanyahu to "carry on with the diplomatic solution and to develop negotiations with Lebanon instead of resorting to a military solution in this period, especially if negotiations would lead to the handover of Hezbollah's arms," the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported.

"The progress of negotiatons would cast out the specter of war, and this explains President Aoun's remarks from Bkirki on Christmas Day's morning when he talked about this point, in which he relied on the U.S. reassurances first as well as the atmosphere of the Mechanism meeting and the international and Western contacts, especially with the Vatican and Washington," the daily added.