Lebanese President Joseph Aoun left Beirut on Saturday for the United States, where he will meet his American counterpart Donald Trump on July 21, amid US-sponsored negotiations between the Lebanese government and Israel, focused on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from areas they have occupied since their latest war with Hezbollah.

Aoun discusses with US officials ways to solidify the ceasefire.

This visit is the first by a Lebanese president to the United States since 2009, when former US President Barack Obama received his then-Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman.

The Lebanese presidency said that Aoun will meet Trump and hold meetings and consultations with a number of US officials on the situation in Lebanon and ways to consolidate the ceasefire, as well as Israel's withdrawal from the Lebanese areas it occupies.

Lebanon and Israel began negotiations in April, the first in decades, aiming for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the vast areas they occupy and ending the state of war between them. On June 26, they signed a framework agreement that specifically stipulates the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, and the deployment of the Lebanese army starting from two pilot areas.

The two countries agreed during a new round of talks in Rome this week to finalize the structure of the pilot areas and begin implementing them within days, in application of the agreement between the two parties, according to Washington.

It is noteworthy that the framework agreement does not set a timeline for withdrawal, while Israeli officials repeatedly state that their forces will not withdraw from a security zone extending ten kilometers from its border until after Hezbollah's disarmament, a step analysts doubt the Lebanese state's ability to achieve.