Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that progress had been achieved in negotiations on two Israeli soldiers captured by the Shiite group last year, but did not confirm they are still alive.
"For the first time, I can say that we have advanced positively in the negotiations concerning the two Israeli soldiers and (Lebanese) prisoners," Nasrallah said in a television address.
He was speaking a day after the first prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbullah in nearly four years. "The doors that had been closed in this case have started to open," he said. "The deal that was carried out yesterday is a great achievement, but was only a partial and preliminary action. The purpose of the deal was humanitarian," Nasrallah said.
He added that the talks between Hizbullah and the "Zionist enemy" were being handled by an international mediator appointed by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan.
"The Israelis raised the issues of the two captured soldiers, the bodies of soldiers buried in Lebanon since the 1982 invasion and the missing navigator Ron Arad. Of course we also raised the issues of our detainees, the bodies of our martyrs and the five Iranian diplomats whom the Lebanese Forces (of Samir Geagea) kidnapped and handed over to Israeli authorities," the Hezbollah chief said.
He also revealed that the UN mediator asked Hizbullah to make a good will gesture and return back the body of an Israeli civilian from Ethiopian origin who drowned in the city of Haifa in 2005 and his body found its way to Lebanese territorial waters. In return, Nasrallah added, the mediator said that Israel would make a similar gesture and release one of the five July war detainees and the bodies of two Islamic Resistance martyrs who also fell in that same war. "So all we had to do was hand over the settler's body and give some information pertaining to a specific issue which I would not like to disclose. We did not go into names. We accepted what they had to offer and they considered our offer as acceptable. The UN mediator requested the operation runs in total silence and we were committed to silence to cut the way on any Israeli bids, similar to the ones that hindered parts of the larger-scale swap deal. Our assessment is that the operation is a major achievement and that it was of high humanitarian value, pending the larger swap to take place," Nasrallah said.
"There is hope and optimism, which did not exist before, on moving forward in the negotiations."
The cross-border raid by Hizbullah in July 2006 that resulted in the soldiers' capture sparked a 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah.
Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomed Monday's prisoner swap as a "bearable" price to pay towards the return of missing soldiers. "For years, our enemies have been trying to raise the price for the least information, the return of kidnapped soldiers and civilians, or their bodies," the Israeli leader said, according to AFP. "Sometimes we have no choice but to pay a heavy price. I believe, however, that what happened yesterday was carried out in a balanced way and at a bearable price."
