Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reiterated his rejection of both direct negotiations and the security track with Israel. Press information indicated that Berri confirms that he knows that "those sitting at the table in Washington on Friday are three Lebanese soldiers, three Israelis, and three Americans. I do not know, nor do I care to know, what the Lebanese delegation is carrying with it, nor do I want to know. I am only asking for a ceasefire, and we have nothing else," recalling that "we have reached a ceasefire agreement four times, none of which was respected, and we are now in a 45-day truce without... A ceasefire, but the war began to rage more and towns were destroyed in front of the one who was supposed to be the guarantor. Unfortunately, we do not have a guarantor now.” Berri added: "I am against direct negotiations. I was and I will continue to be because we go to them and do not carry with us anything to negotiate with. Whoever sits at a negotiating table must have cards to present in order to be able to extract a gain, and to sit with an enemy with a minimum of parity and balance. With what do we go there? Nothing, not even a single card." He continued: "This is the reason that always led me to demand indirect negotiations. I tried them twice with Israel. The first was in 2022 in the maritime demarcation negotiations. Dozens of times the American mediator came to me and went to the Israeli, conveying the conditions and ideas until we reached maritime demarcation. In 2024 the same thing happened. Within two and a half months, the American mediator was coming to me and going to Israel and then returning until we reached a ceasefire." He recalled that “both times we did not sit with Israel at the same table. Pakistan today provides the clearest evidence of the importance of the mediator in resolving disputes. It is neither stronger than the Americans nor stronger than the Iranians, but it has so far succeeded in mediating between them and managing their negotiations indirectly with their approval, and in undertaking the transfer of proposals, drafts and drafts of the agreement. The mediator, any mediator, has an interest in making his mission successful by extracting gains from both parties and imposing concessions on them. That is what we are not doing now. Rather, we are going into direct negotiations empty-handed. So what do we expect? Berri reiterated his assertion that “what concerns me at the present time and what I intervene in is preventing any recklessness or problem at home.” I am only interested in that,” before registering a negative response to Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naeem Qassem’s threat to overthrow the government, saying: “I am not with it and do not agree with it, and it is unnecessary for this to be said. He didn't make me feel comfortable, and we quickly figured it out. The leadership of the Amal Movement and the party held two meetings in the next two days to correct this position. In the Amal Movement, we do not say things like this, and it is not our language, and I certainly do not agree with it.” Berri expressed his insistence on relying on Iran’s position and pressure to impose a ceasefire in the south by saying that it is “the second clause in every agreement it concludes with the Americans,” speaking about “commitments it made to itself and confirmed to us, to the effect that it will not conclude an agreement in which Lebanon is not a major clause, even if it is forced to abandon the agreement entirely.”