Lebanon to Ask EU Not to Label Hizbullah 'Terrorist', Bulgaria Urges Consensus on Blacklisting Military Wing
The Presidency on Thursday announced that caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has been tasked to ask the EU to refrain from putting Hizbullah on its list of terrorist organizations.
“Following consultations with the premier, it has been decided to task FM Adnan Mansour to ask Lebanon's envoy to the EU and to inform the European Commission and the union's member states that Lebanon's government wants them to refrain from putting Hizbullah, an essential component of the Lebanese society, on the list of terror groups, especially should the decision be taken in a hasty manner and without objective and decisive evidence,” the Presidency said.
Al-Arabiya television reported Wednesday that the EU is inclined to “unanimously” approve placing the party on the blacklist.
European Union foreign ministers are set to decide Monday whether or not to add the military wing of Hizbullah to its list of terrorist groups, diplomatic sources said Thursday.
A meeting of EU ambassadors on Thursday broke up with no agreement on adding the powerful group to the list as "a small number of member states" remained opposed, said an EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Ministers will discuss the issue on Monday," said the source, referring to scheduled talks in Brussels between the bloc's 28 foreign ministers.
Unanimity is required to add the Lebanese group to the dozen people and score of groups currently subject to an EU asset freeze -- including Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Colombia's FARC guerrillas.
Another diplomatic source told Agence France Presse that Ireland and Malta were holding out but that Austria appeared to have dropped objections to the push led by Britain, France and the Netherlands. The positions of the Czech Republic, which has changed government, and Slovakia were unclear.
"We are near a consensus," the source said.
Several countries have objected that it is difficult to separate Hizbullah's military and political wing. They also fear destabilizing politically fragile Lebanon as the Syrian crisis across its border deteriorates.
Concerns over Hizbullah have mounted in Europe since an attack last year on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria which Sofia blamed on the party.
On Wednesday, Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said new evidence has bolstered its case implicating Hizbullah in the deadly July 2012 bus bombing, but investigators still do not know the specific identities of the suspects.
The attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas killed five Israeli tourists, the bus driver and the alleged perpetrator.
Bulgaria Thursday commemorated the one-year anniversary of the attack and called for sanctions against Hizbullah.
At a ceremony in Burgas, Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski said the EU should "work towards a consensus decision that would allow... the military wing of Hizbullah to be added to its list of terror organizations."
"There are clear links to Hizbullah behind this attack," Bulgaria's interior minister said Thursday, citing new information from foreign intelligence services.
He pointed to "the very professional preparation and execution of this terrorist act."
Despite recovering fingerprints and DNA from the bomber -- who also died in the attack -- Bulgaria has been struggling to identify the culprits.
A re-enactment of the attack showed the bomber either died by mistake or his device was detonated at a distance.
"We do not have enough evidence to accuse a specific person of a specific crime," Burgas regional prosecutor Kalina Chapkanov told BNT public television Thursday.
The June deadline for the investigation has been extended by five months by prosecutors who said that written testimony by Israeli survivors was only received earlier this month.
In February, an official Bulgarian report said investigators had "well-grounded reasons" to suggest that two men suspected in the attack belonged to the militant wing of Hizbullah.
In March, a Cyprus court sentenced a self-confessed Hizbullah member to four years behind bars for planning attacks there.
Hizbullah has been on a U.S. terror black list since 1995.
Britain and the Netherlands are the only EU nations to have placed Hizbullah on their own lists of terrorist groups.
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