BEIRUT: The US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack warned Lebanese group Hezbollah on Thursday against getting involved in the war between its main backer Iran and Israel.
Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkey, is on his first visit to Beirut, where he met top Lebanese officials including parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah.
“I can say on behalf of President (Donald) Trump… that would be a very, very, very bad decision,” Barrack said after his meeting with Berri, responding to a question on what the US position would be on any involvement by Hezbollah in the war.
In a statement, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the group will “act as we see fit”.
“Tyrannical America and criminal Israel will not be able to subjugate the Iranian people and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Qassem said.
Hezbollah, he added, still had “the responsibility to stand by Iran and provide it with all forms of support that contribute to putting an end to this tyranny and oppression”.
Hezbollah suffered devastating losses in its war against Israel last year, which ended with a ceasefire agreement in November.
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When Israel struck Iran last week, the Lebanese foreign ministry said that it was “continuing its contacts” to spare the country from being dragged into any conflict.
In a statement shared by the Lebanese presidency after his meeting with Barrack, President Joseph Aoun said that “communications are ongoing to achieve the goal of weapons monopoly at both the Lebanese and Palestinian levels, and will intensify after stability returns… to the region”.
According to the November ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
Israel is required to fully withdraw its troops but has kept them in five locations in Lebanon it deems “strategic”.
Lebanon has also recently ramped up efforts to disarm Palestinian groups, which for decades had been in charge of Palestinian refugee camps in the country.
After his meeting with Barrack, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam expressed Lebanon’s “commitment to the choice of security and stability and rejection of being dragged into the ongoing war in the region”.
He also asked the US envoy “to assist Lebanon in pressuring Israel for its complete withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories”.
Despite the ongoing ceasefire, Israel has carried out repeated strikes in Lebanon, which it has said will continue until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
An Israeli strike killed one person in the southern village of Hula on Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said.
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