BEIRUT, Lebanon — A US congress member says that Washington will push Israel to withdraw from all of southern Lebanon if the Lebanese army asserts full control over the country.
“We will push hard to make sure that there is — and this is something that I will work with the Israelis on — a complete withdrawal in return for the Lebanese Armed Forces showing its ability to secure all Lebanon,” California Republican US Rep. Darrell Issa says.
He was speaking in Beirut, where he met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, ahead of a meeting where the Lebanese cabinet was set to discuss the disarmament of the Hezbollah terror group
Issa does not specify whether the US would ask Israel to begin withdrawing its forces from the territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon before or after Hezbollah gives up its arsenal, a point that has been in dispute.
The Lebanese government asked the national army on Tuesday to prepare a plan in which only state institutions in the small nation will have weapons by the end of the year, a move that aims to disarm Hezbollah.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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