Israel’s ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter had two words for the Lebanon peace talks on Tuesday: “train wreck.”
Yechiel Leiter made the declaration during the fifth round of the U.S.-brokered Lebanon-Israel talks at the State Department, arguing that the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed June 17 had given Tehran undue influence in Lebanon and undermined the past four rounds of negotiations.
“We are in a train wreck,” Leiter said. “The basic premise was that Iran is out, and that the main discussion is about Lebanon and Hezbollah, not about the extent to which Iran can restrain Hezbollah. That is not Iran’s role. Its role is to get out of Lebanon. The role of the Lebanese government is to exercise its sovereignty. Sovereignty means that Iran will no longer be involved in activity or malign influence in Lebanon.”
“The only issue is Hezbollah,” he added. “Hezbollah must be defeated and removed from the equation. Instead, there is a danger that Hezbollah has received a boost. It certainly feels stronger and bolder.”
American, Israeli and Lebanese officials had sought to keep the Lebanon talks separate from parallel negotiations over the U.S.-Iran war. Tehran has repeatedly conditioned any deal on peace in southern Lebanon, and the June 17 MOU appear to give that linkage formal weight for the first time.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun confirmed as much on Tuesday. In a statement released by his office, Aoun said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance had committed to implementing a tripartite committee composed of “the United States, Lebanon and Iran to stabilize the ceasefire in Lebanon,” a mechanism promised in the U.S.-Iran deal. Aoun said both Rubio and Vance had also committed to helping his government “strengthen the authority of the Lebanese state.”
This fifth round, which runs through June 25 with both countries’ representatives and senior military officers present, is focused primarily on finalizing the first details of a potential Israeli withdrawal from designated areas in southern Lebanon. The “pilot zones” concept, agreed to in principle at the fourth round on June 2-3, would give the Lebanese Armed Forces exclusive territorial control, explicitly excluding Hezbollah. Tuesday’s session was aimed at identifying specific pilot zone locations and validating a withdrawal timeline.
Lebanon’s president has since last year led a campaign to disarm Hezbollah, with mixed results. His government declared victory in clearing the group from the south only a month before Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel from there in response to the Iran war. At least 4,192 people have been killed and more than 1.2 million displaced since the conflict began in March, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Iranian state media said Sunday that Tehran would “stop any negotiations” with U.S. officials if Israel did not leave Lebanon. On Tuesday, Iran reiterated it would “respond” to any Israeli attacks there after Israeli forces killed two more people in Lebanon.
On the ground, the Israeli media stated that the Israel Defense Forces have begun quietly repositioning some forces in southern Lebanon pending the outcome of this week’s talks, while maintaining that military operations against active threats remain unrestricted. Some planned operations have reportedly been paused, pending political decisions from Washington.
The statement from Leiter came on the same day Rubio arrived in Abu Dhabi to promote the U.S.-Iran MOU with American allies in the Gulf, and to defend, from thousands of miles away, the very framework his own ally had just publicly declared a failure.
“That process is separate,” Rubio told reporters in Abu Dhabi. “It’s separate because Lebanon is a sovereign country. It has a government, and when it comes to Lebanon and what’s happening inside of Lebanon, we’re going to negotiate and deal directly with the Lebanese government.”
He drew a distinction between the two tracks, saying U.S. discussions with Iran about Lebanon were limited to Iran’s support for Hezbollah. “So that factor will be discussed as part of our conversations with the Iranians,” Rubio said.
Before talks began, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott described the American goal as giving the two parties “as sovereign governments” the chance “to make progress toward a lasting peace.”
A U.S. official told MBN the administration’s objective went further. “Our shared goal is to end the cycle of violence for good,” the official said. “We are enabling Israel and Lebanon to negotiate as two sovereign states and to find a way to have peace and security. The talks will continue to advance a comprehensive peace and security agreement between the two countries.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past month over ongoing Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, even using an expletive to describe the Israeli leader as “crazy” for continuing attacks amid U.S.-Iran peace talks.
