US envoy Amos Hochstein has landed in Beirut for talks with officials on a truce between Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanon’s state news agency said, hours after a proposal drafted by Washington won a nod from the group, Reuters reports.
The visit indicates progress in US-led diplomacy aimed at ending a conflict which escalated further in late September, when Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah.
Both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah have agreed to the US ceasefire proposal that was submitted in writing last week and made some comments on the content, Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, told Reuters a day ago.
Khalil said Israel was trying to negotiate “under fire”, a reference to an escalation of its bombardment of Beirut and the southern suburbs. “This won’t affect our position,” he said.
