BEIRUT, 9 April 2005 — The Hezbollah resistance group would be prepared to discuss the fate of its armed wing if Israel withdrew from a disputed border area, the Lebanese group’s deputy leader said in a British newspaper interview yesterday. Sheikh Naim Kassem said one alternative could involve Hezbollah’s fighters becoming a kind of “reservist army” working with Lebanese authorities, the Financial Times reported.
Kassem said no talks could take place while Israel remained in the Shebaa Farms area, a tiny disputed border enclave between Lebanon, Israel and Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Lebanon says Shebaa Farms is Lebanese land occupied by Israel, while the United Nations describes it as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, Beirut vowed yesterday to cooperate with a UN commission set up to probe the killing of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri as Syria pressed a troop withdrawal due to be completed by the end of the month. Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammoud said Lebanon was “ready to cooperate with the (UN) commission in order to help it achieve its mission in the best way and as soon as possible.
