Lebanese parliament speaker calls for ‘calm dialogue’ over Hezbollah disarmament, criticizes US

Lebanon’s parliament speaker criticizes Washington’s push to quickly to disarm the Hezbollah terror group, calling instead for a calm national dialogue to determine “the fate of those weapons.”

Nabih Berri, a key ally of Hezbollah who was instrumental in negotiating with Washington to reach a ceasefire that ended a monthslong war between Israel and Hezbollah in November, makes the remarks in an address to the country commemorating the disappearance of prominent Shite cleric Moussa al-Sadr.

The Lebanese military will soon present a plan to the government on disarming Hezbollah by the end of the year, after President Joseph Aoun and most of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government endorsed a proposal by US envoy Tom Barrack. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem has refused to discuss the matter of the Iran-backed group’s weapons until the IDF withdraws from five hilltops in southern Lebanon it controls and stops its near-daily strikes on Lebanon.

“We are open to discussing the fate of these weapons, which we Lebanese see as honorable, within the framework of a calm and consensual dialogue,” says Berri. He says that would be in line with Aoun and Salam’s policies.

US officials have told Lebanese authorities not to expect the Israelis to take any steps to withdraw before seeing some sort of disarmament plan go into effect. Hezbollah insists that it has disarmed in the south and has carried out its part of the deal. Israel believes it is trying to rebuild its military capacities there.

What the US is proposing now “goes beyond the principle of restricting weapons,” says Berri, who criticizes Israel for its ongoing near-daily airstrikes.