Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said that Lebanon wants “a state-to-state relationship with Iran based on mutual respect,” adding that “this is what we asked of the Iranians” during his meeting with the Iranian delegation in New York.

As for the trilateral agreement with Israel, Salam told Asharq Bloomberg in an interview that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “is aligned with us on the necessity of having a verification process for the trilateral agreement.”

It appears that the political leaderships of Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement have intervened to “contain the fallout and prevent a deeper rift,” following the latest war of words between the two parties, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper has reported.

U.S.-sponsored negotiations between Lebanon and Israel are expected to resume in Tampa, Florida, ahead of the upcoming Israeli elections, a local media report said.

The report published Wednesday on MTV claimed that the new round of talks is tentatively scheduled for October 20.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in their Monday meeting in Washington that the implementation of the framework agreement with Israel should be "reciprocal."

Salam told MTV that disarming Hezbollah is "a Lebanese demand above all else". He said he told Rubio "you need two to tango, whereas we are three today," hinting at Israel's occupation of south Lebanon.

Hezbollah denied on Wednesday any connection to a cell that Syrian authorities said they had dismantled in the country's south and which they accused of being affiliated with the Lebanese group.

A statement from the Iran-backed group's media office said it "categorically denies any relationship or connection between Hezbollah and the alleged cell" and emphasized that "it has no presence whatsoever on Syrian territory and has no involvement in any security or military activity there."

While the mission of the UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon is expected to end late this year, a senior European diplomatic official confirmed on Tuesday that any European security mission in Lebanon will not replace UNIFIL.

The diplomat also clarified to Al-Arabiya television that the proposed European security mission “will support the Lebanese Army in disarming Hezbollah.”

Two years after Israel’s pager operation against Hezbollah, new details are emerging about the steps Israel took before thousands of devices carried by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon.

Among them, according to former defense minister Yoav Gallant, was the killing of a Hezbollah member who suspected the pagers had been booby-trapped, as well as the destruction of equipment brought in from Iran to test them, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.

The Lebanese Army on Tuesday received 47 military Humvees and five trucks as part of the U.S. assistance programs allocated to the Lebanese Armed Forces, the army said.

“This donation comes within the framework of U.S. support for the military institution, aiming to enhance its operational capabilities and raise unit readiness,” the Lebanese Army said in a statement.

A delegation from the British Embassy in Beirut, led by Chargée d’Affaires Victoria Dunne, visited south Lebanon last week to see first-hand the impact of the conflict on local communities and reaffirm UK support, the British Embassy said Tuesday.

In Saida, the delegation met Mansour Daou, Governor of South Lebanon and Acting Governor of Nabatieh, to discuss current challenges, the support needed to strengthen local resilience and recovery planning.

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam “have begun admitting in their private circles and to close associates that the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations have failed to stop the aggression and end the Israeli occupation,” al-Binaa newspaper reported on Tuesday.

They are trying to convince the United States and Saudi Arabia to pressure Israel into securing a withdrawal from a single pilot zone to “avoid embarrassment,” the daily said.