The China Mail - Hezbollah MP to AFP: direct Lebanon-Israel talks a 'grave error'

Israel and Lebanon agreed on Tuesday to begin direct talks following a landmark meeting between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States, weeks after Hezbollah pulled Lebanon into the Middle East war with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran.

The militant group has strongly opposed direct negotiations.

US President Donald Trump later said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day truce, which would start at 2100 GMT on Thursday.

"Direct negotiations with the enemy are a grave sin and a grave error" on the part of the government, Hajj Hassan said from his parliamentary office before Trump's announcement.

Trump had said the Lebanese and Israeli "leaders" would speak on Thursday, but an official Lebanese source told AFP that President Joseph Aoun had rejected a US request for a direct phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Aoun's office later said the president had held a phone call with Trump and thanked the US leader for his "efforts" to secure a ceasefire.

- 'Hypocritical' -

Hajj Hassan said direct talks serve "no interest for the country or its citizens... so how can there be contact at the level Trump mentioned?"

He criticised the government for agreeing to negotiations and yielding to "US wishes" before a ceasefire had been reached in Lebanon.

"If they are unable to uphold a single condition called a ceasefire, how will they negotiate with the Zionist entity (Israel) under American auspices?" he said before Trump announced the truce.

He urged Lebanese authorities to halt "this series of useless concessions... to a treacherous and cunning enemy, and to a hypocritical, deceitful, evasive and lying America".

The Lebanese government insisted "on reaching a ceasefire through the Israelis and the Americans... and not through Iran," Hajj Hassan said, accusing Lebanese officials of excluding the country from a regional ceasefire due to "unjustified blind hatred of Iran".

Israel has been carrying out huge strikes on Lebanon and a ground invasion in the country's south, while Washington and Tehran have been at odds on whether a fragile Middle East ceasefire applies to Lebanon.

Lebanese officials have insisted on separating the talks with Israel from those between the United States and Iran.

Aoun said on Thursday that a ceasefire was "the natural starting point for direct negotiations between the two countries".

He emphasised that "the negotiations are the undertaking of Lebanese authorities alone as this is a sovereign matter that nobody else can be involved in", alluding to Iran.

- 'Internal issue' -

On Thursday, before Trump's announcement, Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told his Lebanese counterpart and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri that "for us, a ceasefire in Lebanon is just as important as a ceasefire in Iran".

Hajj Hassan rejected criticism that his party is in the "service of Iran".

Tehran is Hezbollah's main backer, and for decades has supplied the group with money and weapons.

"The one serving Lebanon and serving Hezbollah... is Iran and the proof is that now it won't accept... any agreement that doesn't include a ceasefire in Lebanon," Hajj Hassan said.

Lebanese authorities last year committed to disarming Hezbollah and the army had begun doing so near the border when the latest war erupted.

Authorities last month banned Hezbollah's military activities, to no effect.

"Fighting is legitimate for the resistance in facing the aggressor and the occupier," Hajj Hassan said.

"The resistance is a Lebanese internal issue. America or Israel have nothing to do with it," Hajj Hassan said.

Lebanon says Israeli attacks have killed more than 2,100 people and forced more than one million from their homes.

R.Yeung--ThChM