Mansour: Drones Don't Violate Resolution 1701, Lebanon to Assume Responsibility for Hizbullah Action
Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stressed that Lebanon is not violating United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, saying Israel has violated the resolution “tens of thousands of times” since its adoption in 2006.
He told the daily: “Hizbullah's unmanned drone that flew over Israel recently does not violate the resolution.”
“Lebanon will definitely assume responsibility for Hizbullah's recent action because the country in a confrontation with Israel,” he added.
“This is not about Hizbullah, but about an ongoing Israeli violation against Lebanon through its occupation of Lebanese territories,” he remarked.
On the Hizbullah drone, the minister said: “It is as if the party is saying that since Israel is capable of violating the resolution, then so can we.”
“It is time for Israel to halt its provocations,” Mansour declared.
“Israel has no excuse to retaliate to Hizbullah's action because it is constantly practicing aggression against Lebanon,” he explained.
“The United Nations has never held Israel responsible for its violations,” he noted.
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday acknowledged that his group sent a sophisticated unmanned drone over Israel last week, saying the device was built by the Jewish state's arch-foe Iran.
His acknowledgment came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed at Hizbullah and vowed to defend his country against further "threats."
On October 6, the Israeli air force jets shot down the unarmed drone over southern Israel's Negev desert after it entered the country's airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
On the Syrian crisis and warnings that it may spread to Lebanon, Mansour said: “We do not need warnings because Lebanon is the most concerned with the crisis due to the historic and geographic ties between the two countries.”
“We are closely monitoring the situation. We are concerned with the security and safety of the region of the whole and not just that of Syria,” stated the foreign minister.
“The developments that have been ongoing in Syria for a year-and-a-half is becoming a threat to neighboring countries,” he added.
On shelling of Lebanese border towns from the Syrian side of the border, Mansour said: “It's one thing for rockets deliberately fired by the Syrian army to land in Lebanon and another for the rockets to land in Lebanon as a result of clashes between the army, opposition, and armed groups.”
“Rockets are bound to land on either side of the border should military operations be taking place nearby,” he noted.
“The army is doing its utmost in protecting the border, but that cannot completely prevent the infiltration of armed groups,” he said.
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