EU turns down Israeli request to blacklist Hezbollah

The European Union turned down a request on Tuesday by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to blacklist Hezbollah after last week's bombing in Bulgaria.    

"There is no consensus for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations," said Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency.    

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had earlier announced that Israel would provide further evidence to back up its request to add Hezbollah to the EU list of terrorist organizations.                 

"I think that we have enough hard evidence about their terrorist activity, laundering money and of course their assistance and their involvement and their support for the brutal regime in Damascus, and their involvement and the massacres and bloodshed today in Syria. And we think we are still waiting to accomplish this investigation in Bulgaria and we will supply or provide all the evidence for European Union and we will wait for the response", Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.         

Marcoullis had replied that the EU would consider listing the organization, should there be tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terrorism. She pointed out that listing an organization as terrorist requires unanimity among EU member states.