For the first time since the Madrid Middle East conference of 1991, a senior Israeli official met with a senior Lebanese figure directly on Wednesday.
Uri Reznik, deputy head of the Foreign Policy Division at Israel’s National Security Council, met in Nakura, Lebanon, with the US president’s advisor on Lebanese affairs, Ms. Morgan Ortagus, and with Lebanese civilian representatives.
The most senior among them was attorney Simon Karam, a former Lebanese ambassador to the United States, who was appointed to head the Lebanese delegation and is known as an opponent of Hezbollah.
Following the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement saying that “the meeting was held in a positive atmosphere, and it was agreed that ideas would be formulated to advance possible economic cooperation between Israel and Lebanon.”
Israel, Lebanon expected to meet again soon
An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that the Israeli representative spoke directly with the Lebanese representative.
According to a source familiar with the details, the next meeting between Israeli and Lebanese senior officials will take place on December 19.
At the end of the successful meeting in Nakura – held in parallel to a session of the mechanism overseeing the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah – Israel hurried to clarify that Hezbollah’s disarmament remains an essential requirement and is not linked in any way to progress on potential economic cooperation.
Behind the scenes, US Special Envoy for Lebanon, Morgan Ortagus, and US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, pressed both Lebanon and Israel to include civilian and diplomatic personnel alongside military representatives in their delegations. “It’s in your strategic interest,” the American officials told their Israeli and Lebanese counterparts.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam later gave an interview following the ceasefire-monitoring committee’s meeting in the south. He stated that Lebanon is ready for negotiations beyond solely military talks with Israel.
He argued that “normalization is tied to the peace process,” adding that in his view, “if both nations adhere to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, normalization will come – but we are still far from that. Economic talks would be part of any normalization process with Israel, which would only occur after a peace agreement.”