Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri confirmed, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, that the United States’ insistence on refusing to renew UNIFIL forces forces the search for an alternative international force that enjoys European-American consensus and is deployed in southern Lebanon under the UN flag.
Berri warned that the absence of this umbrella would cause Lebanon to lose the legal document to adhere to the international reference, which constitutes the regulating framework for supporting the Lebanese army in extending the state’s sovereignty over its entire territory, in conjunction with Israel’s withdrawal to the international borders.
He stressed that bilateral agreements between Lebanon and Israel do not constitute an alternative to the international presence in the south, as long as Israel refuses to implement what the two countries reached under the “Framework Agreement,” and does not commit to implementing the first experimental phase and forming a mechanism to verify the deployment of the army.
Berri indicated that, despite his rejection of the agreement, he had proposed expanding the experimental phase to include the judiciary according to the administrative divisions of the south, instead of limiting it to the occupied western town of Zawtar, with liberated towns included in it.
