Despite President Nabih Berri’s position of objection to direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, he avoids addressing this position through the media, leaving this position to be expressed within specific channels.
In response to a question from Al-Jumhuriya, he explained: “Whoever said that we are against negotiation, we are certainly with indirect negotiation, and we have many experiences in the past, and I personally conducted long rounds of indirect negotiation with a large group of American envoys, the most recent of whom was Amos Hochstein on the file of maritime border demarcation, during which we reached an agreement, as well as on the issue of the disputed points on the Blue Line, and we were able to resolve most of them and only 5 or 6 points remained, and the same was true during the periods of preparing Resolution 1701 with David Welch, and we also have “mechanism” as a framework for negotiation.”
When asked whether he expected results from direct negotiations, he did not want to comment. Regarding the ten-day truce, Berri repeatedly calls on those displaced from their homes to wait, because he never believes in Israeli treachery. As for the “yellow line” that Israel announced in the southern region, he stressed: “There are no yellow lines, no red lines, no green lines, and no lines of any color. We are not concerned with any lines. Rather, we cannot accept that in any form. The Israeli withdrawal from the southern areas that it has penetrated and seeks to consolidate its occupation of, must happen, and if it maintains its occupation, whether of the areas or sites or across the zero lines it draws, this means that every day it will smell the scent of resistance.”
He continued: “This is Lebanese land, and Lebanon cannot tolerate a single meter being diminished from it. If they insist on staying, they will be met with resistance, and our history bears witness to that. We did not begin, and we did not resist like this for free. Rather, through their occupation and attacks, they imposed resistance on us and forced us to resist in order to liberate our land and preserve the sovereignty of our country. Nothing has changed for us, as we are standing in this position until ending the occupation and removing it from our land.
