Hezbollah chief urges avoiding Lebanon division

Nasrallah plays down prospects of new conflict with Israel, but remains ready to defend Lebanon.

BEIRUT - Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Wednesday to cooperate with Lebanon's new unity government but warned that it should avoid the "big issues," in allusion to his resistance group's weapons.

"Success for this government, its prime minister and ministers will mean success for Lebanon and Hezbollah," Nasrallah said in a televised address to mark Hezbollah's martyrs' day.

"But I call for patience in dealing with the big issues," he added, alluding to demands by the UN Security Council and his local rivals for the disarmament of his resistance group.

"If we start with this now, we are headed straight for problems."

Nasrallah also said he hoped for a "government of national cooperation and accord."

"We do not want a government divided by barricades," he said.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced the formation of his new government on Monday, more than four months after his alliance defeated a Hezbollah-led bloc backed by a general election.

The winning alliance headed by Hariri won 71 seats in the 128-member parliament in the election against 57 for the opposition led by Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah opposition had actually secured the majority (52%) of the votes in Lebanon, but could not secure a majority of Parliamentary seats (it won 45%) because of the nature of the sectarian government system in the country.

The government met for the first time on Tuesday at the president palace, making it clear that it would steer clear of the thorny issue of Hezbollah's weapons.

Hariri's government includes 15 ministers from Hariri's bloc and 10 from the opposition. The remaining five were appointed by President Michel Sleiman.

Nasrallah, whose party has two ministers in the new government, played down the prospects of a new conflict with Israel, dismissing recent Israeli warnings as "psychological warfare."

But he added that Hezbollah remained ready for any eventuality.

"Send all the troops you want," he said. "We will kill all your officers and soldiers."

Hezbollah is the only Lebanese party that refused to surrender its weapons after the country's 1975-1990 civil war. It argues they are necessary to defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression.

Nasrallah called on the rival Lebanese blocs' foreign sponsors Iran and Saudi Arabia to work hand in hand on regional issues.

"We call for Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, initiated by either country or any other party," he said.

"These two large, important countries should cooperate," Nasrallah said. "The region is in need of a loyal firefighter."

Israel waged a bloody 34-day war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 after Hezbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid that aimed to free Lebanese soldiers from Israeli prisons. The bodies of the soldiers were returned in a prisoner swap.

The war claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Hezbollah, originally a resistance group formed to counter an Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, had forced the Israeli military out of Lebanon in 2000. Israel, however, continues to occupy the Lebanese Shabaa Farms.

Israeli flights over Lebanon occur on an almost daily basis and are in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1710, which in August 2006 ended the war.