Israeli, Lebanese envoys hold ‘positive’ meeting in Washington

Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter met with his Lebanese counterpart Nada Hamadeh Moawad in Washington last night, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

It was a “positive meeting,” says the official. “They agreed to meet again in October to continue negotiations.”

The meeting at the State Department was a more limited affair than the recent rounds of US-mediated talks. The October round of expanded talks is expected to take place in Rome, after talks that had been scheduled for this week were pushed off, citing scheduling conflicts.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, ahead of a trip to France, said today that he wants a security agreement with Israel once it withdraws from southern Lebanon “primarily to end the state of hostility and the deployment of the army on the border. This could be a prelude to a later peace agreement, but we cannot jump directly to a peace agreement.”