Italian President Sergio Mattarella meets with Lebanese President Michel Aoun in Rome on Tuesday. (Credit: Italian Presidency Press Office/Paolo Giandotti via Reuters)
BEIRUT — President Michel Aoun during his visit to Italy on Tuesday defended his political ally Hezbollah, saying, “Hezbollah does not affect the security of the Lebanese in any way, it cooperates with the Lebanese Army when it comes to handling the situation on the southern borders.”
Here’s what we know:
• In an interview with an Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Aoun also criticized Hezbollah’s classification as a terrorist group in Western countries, saying, “Hezbollah is an armed party that liberated southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation, it is made up of southern Lebanese people and has not committed any terrorist act.”
• Aoun’s remarks follow apparent efforts in recent weeks to strengthen the 16-year-old alliance between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement, which Aoun founded and which his son-in-law Gebran Bassil now leads, following a year in which relations between the parties grew tense. On Dec. 23 last year, Bassil said that the FPM is considering ending the Mar Mikhael agreement, the blueprint for alliance between the two parties which was signed in 2006 .” Hezbollah’s head Hassan Nasrallah, however, responded by saying “we have no problem in improving the Mar Mikhael agreement.”
• A spokesperson for Hezbollah told L’Orient Today last week that Hezbollah and FPM will be allied “in most districts” in the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 15.
• Now that several Gulf states are moving to normalize relations with Israel, Aoun said “Arab countries have come closer [to Israel] because they do not have territories occupied [by Israel]; however, Lebanon and Syria do. When we are able to free them [the occupied territories] there will be no problems in ending the military conflict and starting a peace process with Israel.”
• Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and continued to occupy parts of the south of the country until 2000. Israel’s military continues to occupy the border areas of Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shuba mountains, both of which are disputed areas between Lebanon and Syria.