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State Dept. Official to Asharq Al-Awsat: US, Israel Cooperating to Detect Iran Militias in S.Syria

Israeli troops are pictured in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on the border with Syria on January 3, 2020. (Getty Images)
Israeli troops are pictured in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on the border with Syria on January 3, 2020. (Getty Images)
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State Dept. Official to Asharq Al-Awsat: US, Israel Cooperating to Detect Iran Militias in S.Syria

Israeli troops are pictured in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on the border with Syria on January 3, 2020. (Getty Images)
Israeli troops are pictured in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on the border with Syria on January 3, 2020. (Getty Images)

The United States reiterated its support to Israel in its complete right to defend itself in wake of Israeli strikes last week against Iranian militia positions in Syria.

A State Department spokesman told Asharq Al-Awsat that Washington continues to support Israel’s right to defend itself amid the threat Iran poses to it from Syria.

He revealed that bilateral cooperation is underway with Tel Aviv to detect threats in border regions with Syria.

Echoing repeated demands by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the official stressed the need for the Iranian regime to withdraw its Revolutionary Guard corps forces, Hezbollah fighters and other Tehran-backed groups from Syria in order for peace and stability to be restored.

The malign and destabilizing actions committed by the Iranian regime in Syria are enabling the Bashar Assad regime to carry out its atrocities against the Syrian people and prolong the conflict that has claimed the lives of half a million people and displaced 11 million others, said the spokesman.

If Iran were indeed concerned about the livelihood of the Syrian people, then it should support the political process in line with United Nations Security Council 2254 instead of continuing the bloodshed in the country, he added to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Moreover, the spokesman said that the American administration was well aware that the Assad regime still possesses chemical weapons and was ready to use them.

The regime has used such weapons against its own people over 50 times since the conflict erupted in 2011, he revealed.

All options are on the table for Washington to deal with the regime, he added, vowing that it will continue to employ all means at its disposal to deter the future use of chemical weapons.

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Hochstein to Asharq Al-Awsat: Land Border Demarcation between Lebanon, Israel ‘is Within Reach’

AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
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Hochstein to Asharq Al-Awsat: Land Border Demarcation between Lebanon, Israel ‘is Within Reach’

AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon

The former US special envoy, Amos Hochstein, said the maritime border agreement struck between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 and the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah at the end of last year show that a land border demarcation “is within reach.”

“We can get to a deal but there has to be political willingness,” he said.

“The agreement of the maritime boundary was unique because we’d been trying to work on it for over 10 years,” Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“I understood that a simple diplomatic push for a line was not going to work. It had to be a more complicated and comprehensive agreement. And there was a real threat that people didn’t realize that if we didn’t reach an agreement we would have ended up in a conflict - in a hot conflict - or war over resources.”

He said there is a possibility to reach a Lebanese-Israeli land border agreement because there’s a “provision that mandated the beginning of talks on the land boundary.”

“I believe with concerted effort they can be done quickly,” he said, adding: “It is within reach.”

Hochstein described communication with Hezbollah as “complicated,” saying “I never had only one interlocutor with Hezbollah .... and the first step is to do shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon, Lebanon and Lebanon, and then you had to go to Israel and do shuttle diplomacy between the different factions” there.

“The reality of today and the reality of 2022 are different. Hezbollah had a lock on the political system in Lebanon in the way it doesn’t today.”

North of Litani

The 2024 ceasefire agreement requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to take full operational control of the south Litani region, all the way up to the border. It requires Hezbollah to demilitarize and move further north of the Litani region, he said.

“I don’t want to get into the details of other violations,” he said, but stated that the ceasefire works if both conditions are met.

Lebanon’s opportunity

“Lebanon can rewrite its future ... but it has to be a fundamental change,” he said.

“There is so much potential in Lebanon and if you can bring back opportunity and jobs - and through economic and legal reforms in the country - I think that the future is very bright,” Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Hezbollah is not trying to control the politics and remember that Hezbollah is just an arm of Iran” which “should not be imposing its political will in Lebanon, Israel should not be imposing its military will in Lebanon, Syria should not. No one should. This a moment for Lebanon to make decisions for itself,” he added.