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BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ruled out normalization between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbor, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon.
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalization,” according to a statement shared by the presidency.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” the president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalization were “premature.”
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognized borders.”
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
The United States has been calling on Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to Washington’s demand this week.
The response was not made public, but Aoun stated that Beirut was determined to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country.”
The implementation of this move “will take into account the interest of the state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and national unity on the other,” hinting that Hezbollah’s disarmament will not be done through force.
Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still under Israeli occupation at the time.
The Lebanese group was heavily weakened following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a two-month war in September.

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq: Thirty Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.
Footage from the ceremony showed the fighters, half of them women, queuing to place AK-47 assault rifles, bandoliers and other guns into a large grey cauldron. Flames later engulfed the black gun shafts pointed to the sky, as Kurdish, Iraqi and Turkish officials watched nearby.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkiye and the wider region.
President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped the PKK’s dissolution would bolster Turkish security and regional stability. “May God grant us success in achieving our goals on this path we walk for the security of our country, the peace of our nation, and the establishment of lasting peace in our region,” he said on X.
Friday’s ceremony was held at the entrance of the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north.
The fighters, in beige military fatigues, were flanked by four commanders including senior PKK figure Bese Hozat, who read a statement in Turkish declaring the group’s decision to disarm.
“We voluntarily destroy our weapons, in your presence, as a step of goodwill and determination,” she said, before another commander read the same statement in Kurdish.
Helicopters hovered overhead, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the mountainous area, a Reuters witness said.
The ceremony was attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government and senior members of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party — which also played a key role this year facilitating the PKK’s disarmament decision.
It was unclear when further handovers would take place.
A senior Turkish official said the arms handover marked an “irreversible turning point” in the peace process, while another government source said ensuing steps would include the legal reintegration of PKK members into society in Turkiye and efforts to heal communities and promote reconciliation.

Next steps

The PKK has been based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Turkiye’s southeastern frontier in recent years. Turkiye’s military carries out regular strikes on PKK bases in the region and established several military outposts there.
The end of NATO member Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK could have consequences across the region, including in neighboring Syria where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.
Washington and Ankara want those Kurds to quickly integrate with Syria’s security structure, which has been undergoing reconfiguration since the fall in December of autocratic President Bashar Assad. PKK disarmament could add to this pressure, analysts say.
The PKK, DEM and Ocalan have all called on Erdogan’s government to address Kurdish demands for more rights in regions where Kurds form a majority, particularly Turkiye’s southeast where the insurgency was concentrated.
In a rare online video published on Wednesday, Ocalan — whose large image was shown at the weapons ceremony — also urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage the broader peace process.
Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Ocalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK’s transition into democratic politics.
Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan’s AK Party, said the ceremony marked a first step toward full disarmament and a “terror-free Turkiye,” adding this must be completed “in a short time.”
Erdogan has said the disarmament will enable the rebuilding of Turkiye’s southeast.
Turkiye spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades combating terrorism, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said.