Lebanon President Joseph Aoun to visit White House this month, Trump says
The visit would be the first by a Lebanese president to the White House in over a decade.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would soon visit the White House.
"The president is going to be coming over to see us very shortly, over the next week or two," Trump told reporters in France on the sidelines of the G7 summit.
Trump did not immediately provide further details on the visit, but he called Aoun a "good man."
The Lebanese news outlet LBCI reported that the fifth round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon would occur June 23-25. The US has hosted previous rounds of talks between the two countries, the first in decades.
While Aoun welcomed the US-Iran deal on Monday, he maintained that the Lebanese state is the sole party in charge of the ongoing negotiations with Israel.
Aoun met on Tuesday with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to discuss preparations for the upcoming round of talks with Israel next week. According to a presidency statement, the two described the US-Iran deal as a positive step toward de-escalating the situation in the region and ending the state of war. Regarding the Lebanese-Israeli talks, they reaffirmed Lebanon’s demands for a permanent ceasefire with Israel, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory, the release of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israeli jails and the launch of the reconstruction process.
The last Lebanese president to visit the White House was Michel Sleiman, who held talks with President Barack Obama in 2009.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
