Hezbollah disarmament not for discussion

Minister: Lebanon's national dialogue on defense strategy will not address Hezbollah arms.

BEIRUT - A Lebanese minister said on Sunday that disarming Hezbollah was not "a subject for discussion," two days before Lebanon's national dialogue on defense strategy is due to resume.

"Some have implied that the dialogue session seeks to establish when Hezbollah will be disarmed," Administrative Reform Minister Mohammad Fneich, who is from the powerful resistance group, was quoted as saying by the state news agency ANI.

"This issue is not a subject for discussion and will not be debated at the dialogue session," Fneich said.

Politicians from rival parties are due to meet Tuesday for a new session on defense strategy to be chaired by President Michel Sleiman.

The government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri has failed to resolve the thorny issue of Hezbollah's weapons since its formation in November, when it defeated a Hezbollah-led coalition.

The winning alliance headed by Saad 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 Shiite movement has refused to disarm since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war and insists that its weapons are necessary to defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression and occupation.

The so-called national dialogue was launched in 2006, before the devastating Israeli war on south Lebanon, to determine the fate of the weapons held by the Shiite group.

But it has been delayed several times because of the country's successive political crises.

Last month, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to unleash the group's military might on Israel should Tel Aviv attack Lebanon again.

Hezbollah has participated in government since 2005 and has two ministers in the 30-member unity cabinet.

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.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37672.