Foreign Minister Youssef Raji considered that “the visit of the President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, contributed to breaking the existing deadlock in the issue of the experimental areas.” He pointed out that "the Lebanese army has actually begun its deployment in the first of these areas, and the bet now is on the continuity of this step," stressing that the army is expanding its control to include the entire south. Raji considered that each clause of the framework agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel constitutes a basis on which future negotiations will be built. Raji confirmed, in an interview with the French weekly newspaper Journal Du Dimanche, that “the Lebanese government took a decision a year and a half ago to disarm Hezbollah and consider all its military operations illegal,” after previously ignoring the party’s weapons and military activities. Raji explained that there is no problem with the Shiite community, but rather with the party specifically, considering that the “party” is Lebanese in name, Iranian in essence, and that it does not describe itself as the Lebanese resistance but rather as the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, which, according to him, reflects a goal that goes beyond the national framework. He rejected the idea of ​​separating the military and political wings of the party. The Foreign Minister stressed that the highest priority is disarmament, noting that the issue of the party’s transformation into a purely political organization remains a subsequent issue that concerns him alone. Raji considered that Washington is the party most capable of influencing Israel, which prompted Lebanon to welcome its mediation. He explained that the Americans exerted pressure on the Israeli side, as a result of which they obtained an official confirmation that Tel Aviv does not have any regional ambitions towards Lebanon, considering this a “very important element,” especially in light of the personal involvement of US President Donald Trump in this path, which, according to him, explains the Lebanese confidence in the American administration. He pointed out that Washington had assured the Lebanese authorities that concluding the final agreement would oblige each party to fully abide by what it signed.