President Joseph Aoun meets with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in Cairo during an Arab summit in March 2025. Photo taken from the website of the Egyptian presidency.
BEIRUT — President Joseph Aoun sent a message to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump through Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi as Trump and Sissi held talks Wednesday in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
According to our information, it was the Egyptian president who reached out to the Lebanese presidency at the start of the week to offer to pass on a message to Trump.
Aoun then asked Sissi to press the U.S. president on the importance of putting pressure on Israel to withdraw from the areas it still occupies in southern Lebanon.
He indicated that this would make it easier for the Lebanese Army to accomplish its mission of extending the sovereignty of the state over its entire national territory. L'Orient-Le Jour was not able to confirm whether Lebanon had received a response to its request from Washington or Cairo.
By continuing to occupy certain areas at the border, the Israeli army prevents Lebanese troops from deploying across the entire territory south of the Litani River.
Hezbollah also argues that as long as Israel refuses to fulfill its part of the deal by withdrawing from the southern border, it cannot cooperate with the army in the second phase of the plan on the monopoly of weapons which involves the area between the Litani and Awali rivers.
Since the Gaza cease-fire agreement, which was reached following mediation efforts by Egypt and Qatar, Egypt seems to aspire to expand its role in the Middle East and repeat its diplomatic success in Lebanon.
As part of this, Cairo proposed a de-escalation initiative at the end of last year, taking advantage of the fact that it can negotiate directly with both Israel and Hezbollah.
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