Lebanon president says working on ‘permanent agreements’ after Israel truce

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that his country was on the verge of a “new phase” of “permanent agreements”, after the 10-day ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war went into force.

In a strongly worded speech addressing the Lebanese people and hinting at the Hezbollah group the day after US President Donald Trump announced the truce, Aoun said that his country was no longer “an arena for anyone’s wars”.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East conflict on March 2 when Hezbollah attacked Israel to avenge the death of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

“Now, we all stand before a new phase,” Aoun said in his first speech to the nation since the truce.

“It is the phase of transition from working on a ceasefire to working on permanent agreements that preserve the rights of our people, the unity of our land, and the sovereignty of our nation.”

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He said the Lebanese government had “reclaimed Lebanon and Lebanon’s decision-making power for the first time” in nearly half a century.

“Today, we negotiate for ourselves… we are no longer a pawn in anyone’s game, nor an arena for anyone’s wars, and we never will be again,” he said.

The president thanked “all those who contributed to achieving the ceasefire” including Trump and Saudi Arabia.

The US leader had announced the ceasefire in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.

He later said he expected Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the White House “over the next four or five days”.

The ceasefire came days after Lebanon and Israel’s ambassadors to the US held a meeting in Washington, the first direct meeting between the two countries in decades, as they have technically been at war since 1948.

Direct talks with Israel were “not a sign of weakness nor a concession… negotiations do not mean, and will never mean, giving up any right, conceding any principle, or compromising the sovereignty of this nation,” Aoun added in his speech.

“I hereby affirm… that there will be no agreement that infringes upon our national rights, diminishes the dignity of our steadfast people, or relinquishes an iota of this nation’s soil,” he said.