Lebanese PM tells top Iran official Hezbollah will not be allowed to have arms, warns against interference

No group in Lebanon is permitted to bear arms or rely on foreign backing, its president tells a visiting senior Iranian official after the cabinet approved the goals of a US-backed roadmap to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

During a meeting in Beirut with Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s top security body, Joseph Aoun warns against foreign interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs, saying the country was open to cooperation with Iran but only within the bounds of national sovereignty and mutual respect.

Larijani says the Islamic Republic supports Lebanon’s sovereignty and does not interfere in its decision-making.

“Any decision taken by the Lebanese government in consultation with the resistance is respected by us,” he says after separate talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal movement is an ally of Hezbollah.

By “resistance,” Larijani was alluding to the Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982, grew into a “state-within-a-state” force better armed than the Lebanese army and has repeatedly fought Israel over the decades.

“Iran didn’t bring any plan to Lebanon, the US did. Those intervening in Lebanese affairs are those dictating plans and deadlines,” says Larijani.

He says Lebanon should not “mix its enemies with its friends – your enemy is Israel, your friend is the resistance…I recommend that Lebanon always appreciate the value of resistance.”