Hezbollah rejects Bush call to disarm
Hezbollah’s leader yesterday rejected a suggestion by US President George Bush that the militant group disarm and enter the political mainstream, saying the group will never leave Lebanon defenceless.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah criticised Bush for not standing up to Lebanese demands that Israeli warplanes stop flying over Lebanon, and for not calling on Israel to release its Lebanese detainees.
“He (Bush) does nothing to stop the overflights and its aggression or for the release of the prisoners. Instead, he provides it (Israel) with protection,” Nasrallah said in a three-hour interview on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
“We are ready to remain until the end of time a terrorist organisation in Bush’s view, but we are not ready to give up protection of our country, our people, their blood and their honour,” Nasrallah said.
The US has long condemned Hezbollah, but Bush said Tuesday that the Iranian-backed militant group could shed its terrorist label and win US recognition if it disarms and stays out of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
“We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation,” Bush said, “I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they are not by laying down arms and not threatening peace.”
Nasrallah said it was “very big fallacy” that Hezbollah sought to disrupt Palestinian-Israeli peace.
“We don’t carry out operations in occupied Palestine … The Israelis say Hezbollah is behind the operations by Palestinian factions. This is not true. This is an honour that we don’t claim,” he added.
Nasrallah said “the core” of Bush’s remarks was disarmament.
“The real goal before the eyes of the Americans and the Israelis is disarming Hezbollah and undermining the most important elements that Lebanon possesses,” Nasrallah said.
Earlier yesterday, a member of Hezbollah’s political bureau, Nawaf Moussawi, cautiously welcomed Bush’s remarks. In an interview with Al-Arabiya satellite television, Moussawi said Bush was “trying to propose an approach different from the traditional American approach toward Hezbollah”.
“We read the (Bush) stand in a good way, but also read it in the light of Israeli influence on US policy,” Moussawi said.
Syrian troops left Beirut in 2000 and in the past two weeks they have withdrawn to eastern Lebanon and Syria. Syria has said it will fully withdraw from Lebanon but has given no date.
