Prime Minister Nawaf Salam met Monday with the ambassadors of the five-nation group for Lebanon and told them that the country is determined to implement the arms monopolization plan north of the Litani River.

"I thanked the ambassadors of the Quintet for their visit and their continued support of our government’s reform path, particularly their commendation of the financial regularity and deposit recovery plan submitted by the government to parliament,” Salam said after the meeting.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa said Monday that a “deadline” is “the most important thing” for the issue of removing weapons north of the Litani River, after the Lebanese government said the army would submit in February a weapons monopolization plan for that region.

“Hopefully they will start quickly and finish quickly as well,” Issa told MTV in response to a question.

U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced fresh remarks about the prospects of disarming Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“They’ve made an agreement that they’re gonna disarm. We’re gonna have to assume that they’re going to, but you know it’s not their nature to disarm, it’s not exactly their nature,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has been visiting Lebanon since Thursday, Hezbollah said.

The two men discussed “the events in the region and the world and their repercussions and impact on all of the region’s countries,” Hezbollah’s Media Relations Department said in a statement.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that, based on his talks with American officials, he can tell that what the U.S. wants for Lebanon is the establishment of an actual state that will sign a peace agreement with Israel.

Geagea told Sky News Arabia, in an interview published Thursday, that an actual state cannot be built unless Hezbollah is disarmed, and that Hezbollah can be disarmed without resorting to force, because the group is currently weakened and "does not have the ability to confront anyone".

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has accused the U.S. of sidelining France from the ceasefire monitoring committee in order to monopolize the entire decision-making in the committee alongside Israel.

The U.S.-led committee monitoring the ceasefire, which includes representatives from the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), had met this Wednesday. The meeting in Naqoura in south Lebanon did not include civilians, which Speaker Berri described as a result of the American attempt to monopolize the decisions of the committee.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stated overnight that the role of the Resistance (Hezbollah) had ended in 2000 with the liberation of south Lebanon from Israeli occupation, asserting that "what protects Lebanon today is the State and the Lebanese Army.”

“We want one state for all Lebanese; the decision of war and peace must be in the hands of the State alone, and the exclusivity of arms must serve all citizens and not be directed against anyone," Salam added, in an interview on MTV.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said he welcomes “the encouraging announcements by the Lebanese authorities to restore the State’s monopoly on weapons,” a day after the Lebanese Army announced the completion of the first phase of its arms monopolization plan.

“This process must be pursued resolutely. The second phase of the plan will be a decisive step,” Macron said in a post on X.

Top officials from the European Union will visit Lebanon Friday, where the army a day earlier announced it had completed the first stage of a plan to remove weapons from nonstate groups, including Hezbollah.

The visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council António Costa was part of a regional tour.

A consortium comprising TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy and Italy’s Eni on Friday signed with Lebanonj an agreement for gas exploration in Block 8 off the Lebanese coast. The ceremony took place this morning at the Grand Serail.

The agreement was signed on the Lebanese side by Minister of Energy and Water Joe Saddi.