BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s individual acts do not represent Lebanon, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said Friday, days after tit-for-tat border violence between Hezbollah and Israel along the border.
“What Hezbollah declares and acts only represents itself as a political party that has a special status, but it does not represent the Lebanese government, which uses consensus as a decision-making method,” Joreige told Saudi newspaper Okaz.
He said only the head of the government has the right to speak for the government, stressing that Prime Minister Tammam Salam has expressed the government's official position, which represents the Lebanese state.
His remarks came in the wake of the latest wave of border violence following a Jan. 18 Israeli airstrike that killed six Hezbollah members and an Iranian general in Qunaitra in Syria’s Golan Heights.
Hezbollah launched a revenge attack Wednesday, killing at least two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven others in the occupied Shebaa Farms. The attack sparked Israeli artillery response on southern Lebanon.
“What happened in Shebaa Farms ... makes me worried, but not scared,” Joreige said, pointing to the “international umbrella that protects Lebanon from the repercussions of any war.”
He said the government was seeking to regain its decision-making power over war and peace.
In the aftermath of the attack, Salam stressed his government was committed to U.N. Resolution 1701, which put an end to the 2006 war with Israel.
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