Mansour Says Syria Transitional Govt. Unhelpful, Slams Terror Labeling of Hizbullah

Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour on Friday rejected accusations of terrorism against Hizbullah, noting that the formation of a transitional government in Syria would be counterproductive.

“When one of the parties goes there and puts crippling preconditions, I believe this will not contribute at all to finding the solution,” Mansour said at Beirut's airport upon his return from the Swiss town of Montreux, where he took part in the opening session of the Geneva II peace conference for Syria.

“For example, when a certain party demands the departure of a president or ceding power immediately to a transitional council or transitional government, that also does not contribute to finding the aspired solution and we must take into consideration the viewpoints of all parties,” Mansour added.

The Syrian regime rejects the opposition's contention that the Geneva I agreement requires President Bashar Assad to go. The Geneva communique reached in June 2012 envisaged a transition for Syria, but did not specify whether Assad should leave.

"After my speech (at the conference), I noticed that there is a tendentious chorus that wants to insult Lebanon's foreign minister,” Mansour added.

“When some parties at the conference described Hizbullah as a terrorist group, that was totally unacceptable, because the resistance -- which honored its country, nation and people, struggled against the Israeli enemy and protected Lebanese land – cannot be given this label,” the minister went on to say.

“I stressed in my speech the need not to interfere in the Syrian affairs and said that such an interference will only complicate the crisis, but when foreign parties describe the resistance as terrorist, this is unacceptable, regardless of the reasons behind this labeling,” Mansour added.

At the conference's opening session on Wednesday, Mansour had noted that "those claiming that what is happening in Syria is a result of Hizbullah's involvement in the war want to divert attention from the fact that there are foreign terrorist groups in the region.”