“PROGRESS”
Before heading to Israel, Hochstein met for a second time with one of his main interlocutors, Hezbollah-allied parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the Iran-backed group.
“The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday and made additional progress, so I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can,” Hochstein told reporters in the Lebanese capital.
Hochstein had on Tuesday said an end to the war was “within our grasp”, while a diplomat in Lebanon told AFP that he had studied some modifications to the US truce plan with Lebanese officials.
Ahead of Hochstein’s arrival, Israel’s top diplomat Saar said: “In any agreement we will reach, we will need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations.”
Striking a defiant tone, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament on Monday that Israel would “be forced to ensure our security in the north”.
