Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Lebanon’s demands in negotiations with Israel had not yet been met, identifying four unresolved issues: a ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, border demarcation and the prisoners file. He said the contacts and negotiations had not delivered the progress Lebanon required.
Aoun made the remarks during a meeting with German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Reem Alabali-Radovan at Baabda Palace, according to a release issued by the Lebanese Presidency on 29 October. His comments outlined Lebanon’s position on both negotiations and security concerns.
The president said Lebanon had raised all four files in its contacts and negotiations. His assessment was that the required progress had not been achieved. The remarks therefore presented the issues as outstanding demands, rather than announcing an agreement or a settled outcome on any of them.
Four outstanding issues
Aoun’s list distinguished between a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal, identifying each as a separate matter on which Lebanon sought progress. His assessment covered both, rather than presenting either one as sufficient to meet the demands he described. Both remained part of the position he set out.
Border demarcation was also identified separately. Its inclusion placed the definition of the border alongside withdrawal in Lebanon’s negotiating agenda. Aoun’s account thus treated the border question as a file in its own right, not simply as another description of the demand for Israeli withdrawal.
The prisoners file completed the four-part list. Aoun included it alongside the ceasefire, withdrawal and border issues when describing what Lebanon had raised. The progress he said was still required concerned that full set of demands, with prisoners remaining part of the agenda he outlined.
The central assessment in his remarks was about results: contacts and negotiations had taken place, but they had not produced the progress sought. That distinction matters to the status of the four files. Raising them in negotiations did not, in Aoun’s account, mean that Lebanon’s demands had been met.
His statement brought the four subjects together as Lebanon’s core negotiating concerns. It did not present security arrangements as a replacement for that agenda. Instead, Aoun also addressed how the Lebanese authorities were prepared to respond to security concerns, setting out an official approach alongside his assessment of negotiations.
Official security mechanisms
Aoun said the Lebanese state and army were ready to address security concerns through official mechanisms and established coordination channels, rather than military operations. This was a statement of their readiness to act through those channels, separate from his conclusion that the negotiations had not achieved the required progress.
The distinction between the two elements of his remarks was clear: one concerned the outcomes Lebanon sought, while the other concerned the means of addressing security concerns. Aoun identified the state and army as ready to undertake that role through official arrangements and existing coordination channels.
By referring to established channels, he pointed to an official framework for dealing with security concerns. His preference was for those mechanisms rather than military operations. That position accompanied, but did not alter, his assessment that Lebanon’s four negotiating demands remained unmet.
The account of the Baabda Palace meeting therefore contained both an assessment of negotiations and a statement of institutional readiness. Aoun said the progress Lebanon required had not been achieved, while affirming that the state and army were prepared to address security concerns through official mechanisms.
