WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he spoke with Iran-aligned Lebanese militia group Hezbollah through intermediaries and secured a pledge that it would not attack Israel.
Trump said he also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel has agreed to pull back any troops that were preparing to attack southern Lebanon.
No U.S. president has ever spoken with Hezbollah, with or without intermediaries. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop.”
A Lebanese official told Reuters that Hezbollah had informed the U.S., through Lebanon’s parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, that it was willing to halt attacks on northern Israel in exchange for Israel sparing Beirut and its suburbs any strikes.
The fighting in Lebanon has been the broadest spillover of the Iran war, displacing more than 1.2 million Lebanese through Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since March 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into Israel to back its ally Iran.
In the latest advance, Israeli troops on Saturday seized the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, the military said. That occurred a day after one of the heaviest days of Hezbollah fire toward northern Israel since the April ceasefire, prompting school closures and restrictions.
On the other hand, U.S. President Donald Trump said that talks with Iran were ongoing, despite a report that Tehran had suspended indirect negotiations with the United States to end hostilities.
“Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Iranian state news agency Tasnim reported earlier that Tehran was halting indirect negotiations with the U.S. after Israel ordered troops to push deeper into Lebanon.
In telephone interviews with news outlets after that report, Trump said he had not been told that Iran was suspending talks with Washington.
“They haven’t informed us of that,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News.
Trump said that silence between the two sides would be fine and he was willing to wait.
“I think we’ve been talking too much if you want to know the truth. I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time,” he told NBC.
A suspension in negotiations would not mean the U.S. would start bombing Iran, Trump told the network, adding that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place.