JERUSALEM, May 26 (AFP) - Israel and Lebanon have held indirect talks on withdrawing an Israeli-allied militia from an enclave in south Lebanon in what could be a practice run for a full Israeli pullout from Lebanon, the Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday. The talks, which a defense source said had gone into "high gear," involve pulling the South Lebanon Army (SLA) out of the Jezzine enclave, a salient which juts north from the buffer zone Israel and the SLA occupy in south Lebanon, the Haaretz said. Israel's outgoing defense minister, Moshe Arens, oversaw the initiative and has informed Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak of the Jezzine plan, the newspaper said. Barak approved the move, it said. Barak, who defeated incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 17 elections, has pledged to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon within a year as part of a regional peace effort also involving Syria. Haaretz said a preliminary withdrawal from Jezzine would test the Lebanese government's willingness to deploy its own army in the zone and prevent it from being used by the Islamic militia Hezbollah as a staging ground for attacks on the Israeli-held buffer zone. The exercise could amount to a warmup for a fuller Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon, where Israel has maintained a troop presence since 1978 with the declared aim of preventing cross-border attacks by Palestinian or Islamic guerrillas. Asked about rumors of the SLA withdrawal from Jezzine, Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss told AFP, "Let Israel withdraw from Lebanon and the Lebanese government will take the necessary steps." Another Lebanese official said the government was "prepared to fill any vacuum" left by Israeli or SLA pullbacks and noted that the army has maintained a barracks in Jezzine, a largely Christian town of 4,000. Tuesday a Lebanese news agency reported that a former government minister from the Jezzine area, Edmond Rizk, had informed Hoss that the SLA was already preparing to leave the area. "SLA members have been informed that if they choose to remain with their families, they do so at their own risk," Rizk was quoted as saying. Haaretz said the 3,000-man SLA was opposed to withdrawing from Jezzine and that SLA chief Antoine Lahad discussed the issue with Arens on Tuesday. Yossi Beilin, a senior Labor Party deputy and close Barak associate, minimized the importance of an eventual SLA pullback from Jezzine. "The presence of the SLA in this town, which lies outside the 'security zone' has nothing to do with the security of our northern towns, which lie several dozen kilometers (miles) further south," he said.  