With the UN Security Council discussing the future of the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose mandate ends on Sunday, Barrack told journalists from Lebanon’s presidential palace: “The US position is we will extend for one year.”

Barrack noted disapprovingly that the force cost “a billion dollars a year”.

The Security Council is debating a French-drafted compromise that would keep UNIFIL – first deployed in 1978 to separate Israel and Lebanon – in place for another year while it prepares to withdraw.

The vote, which was supposed to take place on Monday, has faced US and Israeli opposition and was postponed as negotiations continued, several diplomatic sources told AFP.

In the latest draft seen by AFP, the Council would signal “its intention to work on a withdrawal of UNIFIL with the aim of making the Lebanese government the sole provider of security in southern Lebanon”.