Hezbollah's lawmaker, Mohammad Raad, said Sunday that the Shiite group's weapons is out of discussion in the Doha talks between Lebanese rival leaders, the group's Al Manar TV reported.
"The resistance weapons are certainly out of any discussion in Doha," said Raad, head of Hezbollah delegation to the Doha dialogue, which is ongoing between the Western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition in the Qatari capital.
"We are open to any dialogue, but, no one can drag us below the lines we have drawn," he said in an interview with Al Manar TV.
The issue of Hezbollah weapons was driven out of talks during the first session of inter-Lebanese dialogue Saturday when Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani offered to come up with a proposal on Hezbollah weapons and present it later to the two parties.
The Qatar-hosted talks are launched in an attempt to help the Lebanese form a national unity government and elect a compromise presidential candidate after a week-long battle between government supporters and opponents left 72 people dead and at least 200 wounded.
On Wednesday, high-level Arab League mediators flew to Beirut to seek to end the bloodiest fighting among Lebanese since the 1975-90 civil war.
The Arab mediators announced on Thursday that pro-government factions and the opposition had agreed to meet in Doha on Friday to try to break Lebanon's political stalemate.
Hezbollah was the only Lebanese group which did not have to hand over its weapons in 1989, according to the Taef accord which ended its 15 years of civil war.
Hezbollah insisted that the group kept its weapons because it was a resistance force against Israeli occupation south of the country. Israel pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000, but kept control over the disputed Shebaa farms.
Source:Xinhua
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