President Joseph Aoun said Monday that the disarmament of the militant group Hezbollah will come through negotiations as part of a national defense strategy and not through "force."

The Lebanese government has made a decision that "weapons will only be in the hands of the state," but there are "discussions around how to implement this decision," Aoun said in an interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.

Lebanese depositors will get their money back "but it may take time", Economy Minister Amer Bisat said Monday.

"Nobody will lose their deposits but it may take time," Bisat told American news agency Bloomberg, adding that he believes that parliament will pass a draft law on restructuring Lebanon's banking sector within few weeks.

President Joseph Aoun said Monday that the army is implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 in the southern villages and towns.

"The army is fully performing its duties in the villages and towns from which the Israelis withdrew, which confirms its ability to protect the citizens," Aoun said as he met with member of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations.

The Saudi envoy in charge of the Lebanese file, Prince Yazid bin Farhan, met Monday morning with President Joseph Aoun in Baabda, LBCI TV reported.

Hezbollah will not hold a dialogue over its weapons with "those who do not consider Israel an enemy", the group's MP Hassan Fadlallah said Monday, as President Joseph Aoun renewed his appeal for Hezbollah to lay down its weapons.

Aoun said many times that Hezbollah's disarmament can only happen through dialogue and not by force and that Hezbollah "has shown a lot of leniency, flexibility and cooperation over the arms issue."

The dialogue proposed by President Joseph Aoun over the issue of Hezbollah’s arms does not involve holding national dialogue sessions in the vein of those that were held in the past, a media report said.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam met Monday in Damascus with Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, accompanied by a Lebanese ministerial delegation comprising the ministers of foreign affairs, defense and interior.

The meeting was also attended by Syrian Defense Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil said his party supports the state against any "militia", as President Joseph Aoun renewed his appeal for Hezbollah to lay down its weapons.

"We have never been and we will never be a militia," Bassil said Sunday, adding that his party supports the state, the Lebanese army, the presidency, and all constitutional and legitimate institutions against any militia. "When the state fails, when the militias win, we go back to war," he said in a speech marking the anniversary of the outbreak of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

The Lebanese-French national who was accused of detonating explosives in a 2012 attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists was buried in a cemetery designated for fallen Hezbollah fighters, said a former Lebanese security official who negotiated the return of his remains.

The bomber was identified as Mohammad Hassan El-Husseini, 23. On July 18, 2012, he struck a group of Israeli tourists at Burgas Airport in Bulgaria, killing five Israelis, a Bulgarian bus driver, and injuring nearly 40 others, authorities said.

Most military sites belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon have been placed under Lebanese Army control, a source close to the group said.