No Script

Please Wait...

Ramadan Kareem...

Lebanon’s President Sees Role for Hezbollah until Threats Cease

Lebanon’s President Sees Role for Hezbollah until Threats Cease
folder_openLebanon access_time6 years ago
starAdd to favorites

Local Editor

In an interview with Al-Monitor on Wednesday evening prior to his address before the UN General Assembly Thursday, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said that Hezbollah will not be disbanded until the threats against Lebanon cease.

Lebanon’s President Sees Role for Hezbollah until Threats Cease

Aoun, who as head of the Free Patriotic Movement met with Hezbollah's Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in 2006 to agree on defining relations between the two groups and disarming Hezbollah, said that Lebanon cannot ask the latter to disband as long as the country still faces threats.

"And I met with them [in early 2006 as head of the Free Patriotic Movement] and signed a memorandum of understanding about how to [disarm] Hezbollah and to maintain a dialogue for that, but in [the summer of] 2006, ‘Israel' attacked once more. And it's complicated, this situation," the Lebanese President said.

President Aoun said that any solution to "the problem of Hezbollah" would have to come as part of a wider solution to the crises plaguing the region.

He said, "You cannot say to Hezbollah, ‘We have to dismantle your organization,' since ‘Israel' is provoking Lebanon and it is attacking."

"Last week, they attacked twice. The first attack, it was not on Lebanon, but it was from the airspace of Lebanon to Syria. And after that, they simulated an air attack on Sidon, and they broke windows of houses. They broke the sound barrier and [the sonic boom caused damage]. This was at a low altitude, just over the buildings," the Lebanese President explained.

President Aoun went on to say, "Actually Hezbollah has become a component of the regional crisis. If we have to solve the problem of Hezbollah, it would be within a general solution to the Middle East crisis, especially in Syria."

The president also spoke about the refugee crisis facing his country, which now hosts upward of 1.5 million displaced Syrians. Aoun said the Lebanese government isn't getting enough support on this issue, stressing that Lebanon "is paying more than the international community to help the refugees" at a time when it is facing economic and security crises.

Yet President Aoun said international parties should focus on helping Syrians get back to their homes, rather than merely providing support to those displaced. While thousands of such repatriations occurred last month, these transfers had been criticized by international aid groups as failing to ensure returnees' welfare.

He also rejected recent calls for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon [UNIFIL] to take a more active role in curbing Hezbollah's activities on the southern border, saying it is "not a military force" and that Lebanon "cannot give them ... a mission to inspect the homes of the people to see if they have weapons or not."

The president stressed that the UNIFIL "are there to observe the borders of Lebanon and ‘Israel' and to count how many times the ‘Israeli' aircraft goes through Lebanese borders."

Source: Al-Monitor, Edited by website team

Comments

Breaking news