Lebanon FM urges Iran to find ‘new approach’ on Hezbollah arms

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi urges his visiting Iranian counterpart to find a “new approach” to the thorny issue of disarming the Hezbollah terror group, which is backed by Tehran.

Lebanon is under heavy US pressure to disarm Hezbollah, which was heavily weakened in more than a year of war with Israel prior to a November 2024 ceasefire. But Iran and Hezbollah have rejected disarmament.

Lebanon’s army said yesterday that it had completed the first phase of disarming Hezbollah, doing so in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, which called the efforts “encouraging” but “far from sufficient.”

Iran has long wielded substantial influence in Lebanon by funding and arming Hezbollah. But as the balance of power shifted since the recent conflict, local officials have been more critical of Tehran.

“The defense of Lebanon is the sole responsibility of the Lebanese state”, which must have a monopoly on weapons, Raggi told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a Lebanese foreign ministry statement says.

Raggi called on Iran to engage in talks with Lebanon to find “a new approach to the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, drawing on Iran’s relationship with the party, so that these weapons do not become a pretext for weakening Lebanon”.

He asked Araghchi “whether Tehran would accept the presence of an illegal armed organization on its own territory.”

Last month, Raggi declined an invitation to visit Iran and proposed meeting in a neutral third country.

Araghchi also meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, and was set to hold talks with several other senior officials.

After arriving yesterday, he visited the mausoleum of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli air strike on south Beirut in September 2024.