Report: US changed its stance after US team met with Salam

A meeting was recently held between Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and some U.S. officials concerned with the south Lebanon file, who were led by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and a number of U.S. experts and security officials involved in the work of the Mechanism committee, a ministerial source said.

“By the end of the meeting, the Lebanese side noticed that the Americans became relatively convinced of the Lebanese government’s viewpoint, in light of clear explanations of the extent that the Lebanese Army has reached in the process of removing arms in the South Litani area as the year-end deadline approaches,” the source told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper.

“The Americans lauded the Lebanese Army’s work in the South, as they stressed the need for it to carry on with this work, something that PM Nawaf Salam emphasized in the meeting,” the source said.

“The delegation eventually submitted a report to the U.S. administration, which later led to a change in the U.S. stance on Lebanon,” the sources added, noting that “there are U.S. efforts to further press Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu not to carry out any new strike on Lebanon.”