U.S. Efforts to Kick-Start Lebanon-Israel Peace Talks, Hizbullah Must Decide Own Future?
The United States was reportedly seeking to initiate Lebanon-Israel peace talks, an Egyptian diplomat in Washington said.
In an interview with the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah published on Tuesday, the diplomat said that special U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell will relay to the Lebanese government during his second shuttle of the region in six or seven weeks an "American request" stressing the need to engage in direct talks with Israel.
In 1983 — a year after Israel launched its first invasion of Lebanon — Lebanon and Israel signed an agreement terminating their state of war. But that U.S.-backed attempt quickly collapsed because the Lebanese government at the time disintegrated under pressure from neighboring Syria.
The Egyptian diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, quoted a senior national security adviser in the White House as saying that the U.S. views matched the Egyptians and Saudis as well as most Arab countries regarding the need to end the separation of Gaza from the West Bank and Hamas” rule of the Strip.
The adviser said Mitchell”s Middle East mission was based on these "united views."
He said the views will be the same when dealing with Hizbullah.
In the course of negotiations, Hizbullah must decide its own future, the adviser said: "Does Hizbullah want to become a politically active party on the Lebanese arena or remain an armed party with no future but destruction and nonstop wars?"
The Egyptian diplomat told al-Seyassah that the U.S. administration has set a deadline of six months starting November for Mitchell”s mission to "yield success."