Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in an interview with Qatari channel al-Jazeera on Tuesday that he "received some kind of American guarantees regarding a reduction in the level of Israeli escalation on Beirut and its southern suburbs."

"The Americans are serious in their pressure on Israel for a cease-fire," he stated.

"The strict security measures applied at the airport aim to remove from Israel all pretexts that it could use to attack Beirut airport, ports and land border crossings [with Syria]," he added.

On the diplomatic front, Mikati stressed that "there are attempts in the [U.N.] Security Council to declare a cease-fire [in Lebanon, between Israel and Hezbollah], to strengthen the army and to implement U.N. Resolution 1701 (which ended the war in 2006) but they have not yet come to fruition."

He noted that the Security Council met last week but failed to impose a ceasefire in Lebanon.

"We are trying to secure prior international approval before submitting this issue to the Security Council again, especially since most countries are in solidarity with Lebanon," he added.

Mikati said that the decision to implement Resolution 1701 was taken within the Lebanese government last week, and that the demands for a cease-fire resolution at the U.N. were accompanied by a commitment from the Lebanese government to deploy the army in south Lebanon.

"1701 is the solution, so let us prepare to implement it, especially since the army is ready to strengthen its presence in south Lebanon in cooperation with UNIFIL," he stated.

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In another interview with AFP on Tuesday, Mikati assured that "the Lebanese state is ready to impose its sovereignty over all Lebanese territory" under international resolutions, including 1701 which provides that only the army and the Blue Helmets be deployed in the south of the country.

"We currently have 4,500 soldiers in the south and we want to increase to between 7,000 and 11,000," he added.

Asked by Al-Jazeera about U.N. Resolution 1559 (adopted in 2004 and stipulating, among other things, the disarmament of militias in Lebanon, editor's note), he said. "There is no need to raise the issue of Resolution 1559 at this time, because it is a source of disagreement among the Lebanese."

1559 was recently brought up again by the Lebanese Forces, a political opponent of Hezbollah, and rejected by the party's ally, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

On the rumors circulating about the Israeli desire to impose a five-kilometer border strip inside Lebanese territory, Mikati assured "that the Lebanese state has not received any official document on this subject" and hammered home to al-Jazeera that any occupation of any Lebanese territory is "refused." Responding to a question from AFP, and while the Israeli army says it has been carrying out land incursions into Lebanon since Sept. 30, the Prime Minister affirmed that "there are advances and retreats, [Israeli soldiers] enter and leave" Lebanese territory.

This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.