Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister on Friday made a rare rebuke to Iran and said Tehran’s envoy should be summoned over reported comments by a top Iranian official that it would be ready to help “negotiate” to implement a U.N. resolution on Lebanon.
Criticism of Iran by top Lebanese officials is unusual, particularly given Tehran’s sponsorship of powerful Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is currently locked in battles against Israeli troops along Lebanon’s southern border.
In an interview published in France’s Le Figaro on Thursday, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf was quoted as saying his country would be ready to “negotiate” with France to implement United Nations Resolution 1701.
That resolution, which ended the last round of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.
Lebanese PM Najib Mikati said on Friday that he was “surprised” by the comments, calling them “a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to establish a rejected guardianship over Lebanon”.
Mikati said such a negotiation was the prerogative of the Lebanese state, and asked Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib to summon the Chargé d’Affaires of the Iranian embassy in Beirut over Ghalibaf’s comments.
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