Hizbullah rejects UN call for disarming

Source: Daily Star, 20-4-2006
BEIRUT: Lebanon`s Hizbullah dismissed on Wednesday a UN report asking the government to disarm the resistance group and set its borders with Syria, saying the report pandered to "Israeli" demands.
The report, presented late Tuesday night by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Security Council members, was based on the notes of Terje Roed-Larsen, UN special envoy on the implementation of UN Resolution 1559, which called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon and the disarmament of "militias."
The report recommended that Hizbullah be integrated into the Lebanese Army and urgently called on all parties who "have the ability to influence Hizbullah and other militias to support the full implementation of Resolution 1559."
Annan stressed that the Lebanese Army command had asserted to his special envoy that "the integration of Hizbullah into the Armed Forces does not pose problems from an operational point of view, if and when such a decision is made."
In Tuesday`s report Annan said that the "most significant Lebanese militia is Hizbullah," and he called on the leaders of the resistance party to integrate the group within the Lebanese army, a formula that he said was supported by many Lebanese leaders that Roed-Larsen had met with recently.
Hizbullah responded sharply.
"Terje Roed-Larsen ... tries to meet the demands of the "Israeli" agenda through the Lebanese gate," Ali Ammar, one of Hizbullah`s 14 MPs, told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation television.
Hizbullah and "Israel" have clashed sporadically in the "Israeli"-occupied border territory of Shibaa Farms, which the UN as well as "Israel" considers Syrian land. Lebanon however contends it is Lebanese and is currently trying to prove that before the UN.
"From our point of view, Resolution 1559 has been implemented and there is nothing left of it. If it is about elections, the elections took place and produced constitutional institutions," Ammar said.
But despite Annan`s criticism for Hizbullah`s continued armed presence along the borders with "Israel", he said that he had "further taken positive note of repeated statements by Hizbullah`s leaders that indicate their willingness to disarm through design of, and Hizbullah`s integration into, a broad national defense strategy mechanism for the protection of Lebanon. These are commendable developments."