New Delhi, July 10 -- BEIRUT - A US administration official confirmed this week that Israel will return the first "pilot zone" in occupied southern Lebanon to Beirut's control "in a matter of days," offering the clearest timetable yet attached to a framework agreement Washington brokered after months of closed-door negotiations, TASS reported. Further pilot zones have already been identified and planned, the official said.

The disclosure pins a concrete, if still provisional, schedule to an accord signed on June 26, following five rounds of talks in Washington. That agreement commits Israel to a phased withdrawal from Lebanese territory while requiring the Lebanese Armed Forces to progressively reassert what the text calls "effective sov...