Hizbollah expects arms talks after Lebanese polls
Reuters
Date: 05-07-05
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT, May 7 (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrilla group said on Saturday it expected to engage in heated debate over demands to disarm after Lebanon's elections, but insisted it would keep its weapons as long as Israel posed a threat to the country.
"I don't think the Lebanese government would just confront and say 'I demand you deliver your weapons'," Hizbollah's deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem told Reuters in an interview.
"I expect that soon after the election there will be an internal discussion about the weapons ... calmly inside closed rooms," he said. "I think the discussion on Hizbollah's weapons with many Lebanese sides is going to be a heated one but I can't anticipate what the result is going to be".
Kassem, who reiterated the group's position that it would not disarm as long as Israel posed a threat, said the group's arms were needed to protect Lebanon.
"We believe that the arms are a need for Lebanon, to defend it in the face of the Israeli danger... That is what we are going to discuss with others," he said.
Kassem said that even if all Arab countries, including Lebanon, signed a peace treaty with Israel, the group which was instrumental in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon would never recognise the Jewish state.
"(Palestinian) land should return to its real people. We will say no to recognising Israel even if all the others did," he said. "So we in Hizbollah believe that keeping our weapons is a necessity now and in the future as long as the Israeli threat exists."
Lebanon will hold general elections from May 29-June 19, the first ballot in the country without Syrian domination in 33 years. The anti-Syrian opposition hopes to win a majority of seats at the assembly, now dominated by pro-Syria lawmakers.
Hizbollah has 12 deputies in the current parliament and plans to run in the coming elections. Kassem said the group was confident it would gain "the same number of seats if not more".
DEFENDING LEBANON
Some opposition leaders have said they want Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, to give up its weapons in line with United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 that also demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops.
The United States has also demanded the disarming of Hizbollah, which it labels a terrorist group.
Other Lebanese politicians have said the issue was a domestic one that should only be decided by the Lebanese.
Syria completed last month the pullout of its troops.
Hizbollah has rejected the U.N. resolution and said it would not implement it.
Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Friday that resolution 1559 did not apply to Hizbollah guerrillas but added that the group will be disarmed.
The disarming of Hizbollah, however, "would have to be in the context of a Lebanese framework", Mikati told Arab-language reporters after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Kassem expected talks with the government to touch many issues that are of Hizbolllah's concern.
"The discussion is not going to be about only one item which is asking Hizbollah to deliver its weapons and that's it. There are going to be full discussions on many issues," he said.
"How would Lebanon protect itself, how would it stop Israel from assaulting the country again and how would the Israeli planes be banned from flying over our country? All these things should be discussed in one basket," he added.
Israeli soldiers occasionally exchange fire with Hizbollah guerrillas in Shebaa Farms, a border strip that the U.N. and Israel say is in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights -- a part of Syria -- while Syria and Lebanon say it is Lebanese.
Israeli military jets regularly fly over Lebanon triggering occasional anti-aircraft fire from Hizbollah and the army.
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