Lebanon's Hezbollah has demanded that the United Nations remain at an equal distance from all political players and avoid interfering in the country's internal affairs in order to avoid "a chaotic Lebanon," The Daily Star reported on Saturday.

"The (UN) Security Council should not get too involved in the Lebanese details. It should remain neutral if they want a stable Lebanon," Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's number two, was quoted as saying on Friday.

"But if they want a chaotic Lebanon, then what they are doing is leading toward the direction they want," he added.

The warning came two days after the Lebanese government sent the UN Security Council a second request to consider alternative means to set up an international tribunal to look into the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and related crimes.

Qassem said establishing the court under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would obviate the need for Lebanon's parliamentary approval, would lead to a confrontation with half of the Lebanese population.

Lebanon's political disputes, including the establishment of the tribunal on Hariri's killing, have lasted for about five months in which politicians traded insults and their supporters clashed in the streets.

Lebanese opposition alliance launched an open-ended sit-in in downtown Beirut on Dec. 1, 2006, in a bid to topple Prime Minister Fouad Seniora's government, declaring the anti-Syrian cabinet illegitimate and demanding early parliamentary elections and a new electoral law.

The Seniora government, backed by the March 14 parliamentary majority coalition, had rejected such calls and accused the Hezbollah-led protest of trying to obstruct the creation of the international tribunal on Hariri' killing in February 2005.

Source: Xinhua