Lebanese PM blasts Iran for interfering in ‘domestic issues’ in rare rebuke
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on October 16, 2024. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
Iran’s interference in Lebanon is not a secret. However, it is rare to see a public rebuke from an Lebanese high-level official against Iran’s continuous interference in the country.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday offered a rare rebuke of Iran, charging it with “blatant interference” over remarks attributed to its parliament speaker on a UN resolution on Hezbollah and Lebanon.
The Security Council resolution, adopted in 2006 and which states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, has come into focus during the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.
In remarks published by France’s Le Figaro newspaper on Thursday, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf reportedly said his government was ready to negotiate on the implementation of the resolution, which is seen as a precondition for a ceasefire in the war.
Mikati hit back, accusing Iran of “blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to establish an unacceptable guardianship over Lebanon”.
“The issue of negotiating to implement international resolution 1701 is being undertaken by the Lebanese state,” Mikati said in a statement released by his office.
“Everyone is required to support it in this direction, not to seek to impose new mandates”.
Mikati said that Lebanon’s foreign minister would summon Iran’s charge d’affaires to seek clarification on Ghalibaf’s remarks.
