“I came back because we have a real opportunity to end this conflict,” he told journalists, after a meeting of almost two hours with the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and responsible for lead negotiations on a truce.
“Ultimately, it is the parties who must decide to end this conflict,” he added, stressing that his role was to “facilitate this decision”.
“It’s now within reach. »
“Today we had very constructive discussions with Mr. Berri, and we continued to reduce the gaps through the discussions of recent weeks,” he said.
The American official also spoke with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who assured that “the government’s priority” was “a ceasefire and an end to the aggression on Lebanon”, but also to ” preserve Lebanese sovereignty over the entire territory,” according to a press release from his services.
On Monday, a Lebanese official familiar with the negotiations assured that Lebanon had a “very positive” point of view regarding the American ceasefire proposal.
“We are finalizing the final remarks,” said this official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A second official assured him that Lebanon was awaiting the arrival of Mr. Hochstein “to study certain points with him”.
After a year of cross-border exchanges of fire in southern Lebanon, the pro-Iranian Islamist movement Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been at open war since September 23.
Israeli bombings have increased on Hezbollah strongholds and on Beirut in recent days.
After initially announcing a speech during the day by its leader Naïm Qassem, Hezbollah quickly added that it had been postponed indefinitely.
