BEIRUT - After a second summons by Foreign Minister Joe Raggi, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, met Thursday with Secretary General Hani Chmaytelli at the Foreign Ministry in Beirut.

According to the official statement from the ministry, he delivered a message about "the necessity to adhere to the diplomatic rules governing international agreements on respecting the sovereignty of countries and non-interference in their internal affairs, particularly the Vienna agreements."

It was a post on the social network X, where he labeled last Friday's calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah as a "blatant conspiracy against nations," that prompted the diplomat's summons. In an interview on the local channel al-Jadeed on Wednesday, Mojtaba Amani acknowledged being summoned by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he could not attend the appointment because he was "busy."

He emphasized that Iran respected "what the Lebanese have agreed upon" regarding the disarmament of Hezbollah. Reflecting on the war waged by Israel, he commented that "Hezbollah and Hamas were not defeated."

The Foreign Minister Joe Raggi, who was in Cairo this week, summoned Amani again after his first absence. According to informed sources questioned by L’Orient-Le Jour, Raggi was back on Thursday and was indeed at his office. For an observer, the fact that the Iranian ambassador, the powerful regional ally of Hezbollah, was still received by the Secretary General and not the Minister himself could also be perceived as a political "message" to Tehran.

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The monopoly of arms in the hands of the state was at the heart of the inauguration speech of President Joseph Aoun, delivered on January 9, and of the ministerial declaration of Nawaf Salam's prliament. This implies de facto the disarmament of Hezbollah, significantly weakened after the last thirteen-month war with Israel that began on Oct. 8, 2023, until the cease-fire on Nov. 27, 2024, the death of its main leaders, and the destruction of a large part of its arsenal.

This week, in a speech delivered at the 163rd session of the Arab League in Cairo, Joe Raggi reaffirmed Lebanon's commitment to a foreign policy based exclusively "on the defense of national interests" and "the refusal of any foreign interference in its internal affairs," in a thinly veiled reference to the Iranian influence exercised by Hezbollah.

Ambassador Amani had been injured by the explosion of a pager during this remote Israeli attack, which had caused, in mid-September, 12 deaths and thousands of injuries among Hezbollah cadres, just before the expansion of the conflict with Israel on Sept. 23, 2024.