Fadlallah slams Rajji as 'militiaman who took part in civil war'
Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah on Wednesday lashed out at Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji over the latter’s latest remarks on Hezbollah.
“It is clear that as a militiaman who took part in civil war against the Lebanese people, he does not differentiate between his belonging to the (Lebanese Forces’ now-defunct) Military Council and his membership of the Council of Ministers,” Fadlallah said, in response to a reporter’s question.
“He is still living the culture of war on which he was raised in his party, whose specialty was to kill our national army members and seize chances to pounce on it and on the state and the Lebanese, but its illusions will once again fail,” Fadlallah added.
Rajji has said, in remarks to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, that “there is consensus among the government and people that Hezbollah is an illegal military organization and needs to be not only disarmed, but dismantled.”
“Hezbollah is free to engage in politics, but it is not free to maintain illegal arms,” Rajji added, according to an English-language summary published by the Institute.
Accusing Hezbollah of rejecting “the terms of the 2024 ceasefire agreement that stipulated full disarmament throughout the entirety of Lebanon,” Rajji noted that “the texts are very clear” and that “Hezbollah is either lying or doesn’t know how to read.”
“Now the group is threatening ‘civil war’ if the LAF (Lebanese Army) proceeds with the process north of the Litani. Iranian leaders are also threatening violence. Warnings of civil war constitute a form of blackmail against the Lebanese government. Hezbollah is hoping to buy time, reconstitute, and continue its domination of the country,” Rajji added.
“If a democratically elected government moves to disarm an illegal armed organization, it is restoring the principles of the constitution and the Taif Accord, not waging a ‘civil war.’ In any event, the LAF is capable of confronting Hezbollah militarily if necessary,” he reportedly said.
Source: Naharnet
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