Gebran Bassil tells Reuters: Hezbollah should focus on Lebanon's internal issues, not the wider region

Hezbollah needs to focus on domestic issues in Lebanon and not the wider region, senior Lebanese Maronite politician Gebran Bassil said on Tuesday, adding that he was against the head of the army running for the presidency.

A year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, which culminated in a tentative ceasefire brokered by the United States and France in November, saw more than 4,000 killed, thousands displaced and the powerful Shiite group considerably weakened militarily with many of its leaders dead.

"It's a process whereby Hezbollah accepts that they are part of the Lebanese state and are not parallel to the state," Bassil, a Maronite Christian who is one of Lebanon's most influential politicians, told Reuters in an interview in Paris.

"We don't want their end. We want them to be partners in the Lebanese nation, equal to us in abiding by the rules and preserving the sovereignty of Lebanon. We agree with them on defending Lebanon and supporting the Palestinian cause, but politically and diplomatically, not militarily."

Bassil, who said the group should distance itself from the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance," is head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a Christian party founded by former President Michel Aoun, his father-in-law, that has been aligned with Hezbollah.

Reuters