PARIS, July 16 (ANI): Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi on Thursday declared that ending Hezbollah’s military presence is a “sovereign Lebanese decision,” marking a significant shift in the country’s efforts to consolidate state authority.
Reflecting on remarks delivered at the French Senate, Raggi reaffirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty and said the country would not return to a system of dual authority. He also declared there would no longer be any place for weapons outside the state’s control.
“From the French Senate, I reaffirmed that Lebanon has made its choice: there will be no return to dual authority, and there is no longer any place for weapons outside the authority of the state or for decisions taken outside its constitutional institutions,” Raggi wrote in a post on X.
“The decision to end Hezbollah’s military presence is a sovereign Lebanese decision. It preceded the Framework Agreement and paved the way for it, affirming that decisions on war and peace, as well as foreign policy, are now the exclusive prerogative of the Lebanese state,” he added.
Raggi said the government’s effort to extend state authority remains closely tied to broader national security objectives.
He stressed that “the full extension of the Lebanese Armed Forces’ authority across the entire Lebanese territory remains inseparable from Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Lebanese territories it continues to occupy.”
Framing the country’s next steps as a national recovery effort rather than crisis management, Raggi told the French Senate, “Lebanon today is not asking its friends to manage its crises, but to accompany its recovery. A genuine partnership is one that strengthens the state, consolidates its sovereignty, and is founded on the conviction that a free, sovereign, and democratic Lebanon is not a deferred aspiration, but an irreversible choice.”
Last week, Al Jazeera reported that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is expected to travel to the White House before the end of July to meet with US President Donald Trump in a visit aimed at advancing the framework agreement with Israel signed on June 26.
The planned visit follows a 17-minute phone call between the two leaders on July 5 that Aoun described as “good.”
According to Al Jazeera, Aoun told the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar that the framework agreement is “not ideal,” but said the government’s acceptance of it reflects realities on the ground and the current balance of power in southern Lebanon, which he said favors Israel.
“This is a framework, not an agreement with Israel… No one should bet on the Lebanese army’s division, and I will not let my people die,” Aoun said, adding that the arrangement would not prevent Lebanon from pursuing its rights and seeking the return of occupied territory.
According to Al Jazeera, Aoun also said the phased security transition would begin with a pilot deployment in Zawtar in the Nabatieh district, where the Lebanese army would assume exclusive control of specific towns to facilitate a gradual Israeli military withdrawal.
He added that Lebanese officials had asked US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ensure that Ali Al-Taher Hill remains under Lebanese army control and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the proposal.
Aoun also defended Lebanon’s decision to send a minister to the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying, “Our diplomatic relations with Iran continue and are not severed.”
The developments follow the formal signing of the trilateral framework agreement by the United States, Israel, and Lebanon on June 26. (ANI)
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