Geagea: Disarming Hezbollah is a Lebanese internal matter

The leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF), Samir Geagea, expressed hope on Monday that Hezbollah would cooperate with Lebanese authorities calling for its disarmament, warning against "a resort to force" that the state is sometimes "obliged" to employ. He also stated that the disarmament of the party is a "Lebanese internal matter."

"Sometimes, the state is forced to resort to force. I hope we do not reach that point and that Hezbollah will respond as it should," stressed the Maronite leader in an interview with Al-Arabiya channel. He also described the decision by Nawaf Salam's government to disarm the party by the end of the year as an "important and new recognition, given that the state's authority in Lebanon had, for 40 years, been hijacked and diminished."

"In the first phase, the domination of the Assad regime prevailed over the Lebanese state, while the second phase was marked by Hezbollah's hold over the state," he added.

In response to a question regarding the American roadmap, the LF leader stated that "it is indeed an American document," while nonetheless asserting that "Lebanon, despite its weakness, cannot have anything imposed on it by anyone," in response to comments by the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani.

During a visit to Beirut last week, Larijani stated that Tehran had not prepared "a document, as the Americans did," in reference to the roadmap of U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack and assured that Iran does not "interfere in Lebanese domestic affairs."

No internal division within Hezbollah

"The Americans have said from the beginning, and not as the Iranians claim, that they do not tie their destiny, nor their strategy, nor their entire economy, to Lebanon's approval of this roadmap. They are trying to reorganize a new Middle East and extinguish existing wars and tensions," said the Maronite leader.

He thus noted that "without a state monopoly on arms, and without restoring strategic decision-making, a true Lebanese state cannot exist." He added: "The issue of disarmament is a Lebanese internal matter, and above all a Lebanese demand."

He called for "a survey among the Lebanese people by an independent body, not affiliated with the Iranian axis, on the question of the Shiite party's weapons, to show that 70 percent of Lebanese want Hezbollah to be disarmed."

The LF leader believed that there is no "internal division within Hezbollah." He emphasized that "the decision is not in Hezbollah's hands, but in those of Iran, which is currently trying to reconstitute its assets from Yemen, through the popular mobilizations in Iraq, to Lebanon." He indicated, however, that Tehran is no longer able to do this in Syria, as that country is "in a completely different situation" after the fall of the Assad regime.

Geagea also stated that "today, there is intimidation of a community considered a fundamental element of political, democratic and social life," noting that it is the Shiite community. For him, "this is a serious mistake made by some, and it is also a big lie spread by Hezbollah." "No one has ever targeted the Shiite community, which is an essential component of Lebanon. We have lived with the Shiite community for hundreds of years, and we have good relations with it," he continued. "Some compare what this community is going through to what the Christian component experienced between 1990 and 2005," he added, considering that "this comparison is not valid." He also specified that "the Shiite community was taken hostage by [Hezbollah], which is an instrument in the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."