"Hezbollah is Lebanese in name, but Iranian in essence": Lebanese Foreign Minister attacks the terrorist organization

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajeh said today (Sunday) in an interview with the French weekly "Journal du Dimanche" that "the problem is not with the Shiite community but with the organization itself." He explained that "Hezbollah is Lebanese in name, but Iranian in essence, and it does not define itself as the Lebanese resistance but as the Islamic resistance in Lebanon - a matter that reflects a goal that exceeds the national framework."

"The visit of the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, contributed to breaking the deadlock that prevailed on the issue of the pilot zones," he noted, adding that "the Lebanese army has actually begun to deploy in the first of these areas, which are supposed to eventually, like the rest of the territories of Lebanon, be free of any weapon that is not in the hands of the state's security forces."

Rajeh added that "the government of Lebanon already made a decision a year and a half ago to disarm Hezbollah and define all its military actions as illegal, after having previously turned a blind eye to the organization's weapons and its military activity." He emphasized that "the government is determined to restore the full authority of the state, a matter that requires the dismantling of Hezbollah's military infrastructure and the handing over of its weapons."

He rejected the idea of separating the military wing from the political wing of Hezbollah, and emphasized that "the top priority is its disarmament, while the question of turning it into a political organization only is a later issue, concerning it alone."

He further noted that "the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, including a growing segment within the Shiite community itself, aspires for the state to regain its legal monopoly on the use of force, even though many refrain from saying so publicly for fear for their safety."