Report: Ortagus threatens Aoun and Salam with giving Israel freedom of action

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have received phone calls from Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who “stressed the need to form civilian committees to negotiate with Israel,” Al-Jadeed TV has reported.

Ortagus warned that the U.S. would withdraw from the ceasefire monitoring committee and grant Israel freedom of action, Al-Jadeed claimed.

Earlier on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji had said that “Lebanon’s stance is clear in terms of rejecting any form of normalization,” revealing that “the U.S. side has not mentioned this matter.”

“Lebanon will not accept to carry out any direct political negotiations with Israel,” Rajji added.

Ortagus had announced on March 11 that the U.S. will be “bringing together Lebanon and Israel for talks aimed at diplomatically resolving several outstanding issues between the two countries.”

Ortagus said the issues that will be discussed are “the release of Lebanese prisoners, the remaining disputed points along the Blue Line, and the remaining 5 points where Israeli forces are still deployed.”

“We look forward to quickly convening these diplomat-led working groups to resolve outstanding issues, along with our international partners,” she added.

In an interview with Al-Jadeed that day, Ortagus said: "We want to get a political resolution, finally, to the border disputes."

"I feel fairly confident that... we can have final resolution on the five points and ultimately on the remaining issues related to the Blue Line," she added.