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Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday tried to distance his movement from Tehran, saying that the Shiite terror group would not immediately retaliate if Israel attacked Iran.
"Iran itself and not its allies will forcefully retaliate against any Israeli strike," Nasrallah said in an interview with Iran-based Arabic news channel Al-Alam News Network, according to the Lebanese online news portal Naharnet.
"Iran is a strong regional state and any war with it will blow up the entire region," he said.
Faced with internal criticism that his group is acting in the interest of Tehran and not that of Lebanon, he challenged "anyone to name a single act that Hezbollah has done in the interest of Iran rather than in that of Lebanon."
Nasrallah claimed that Hezbollah's precision-guided missiles are scattered all over Lebanon, so Israel would need to launch a full-scale war to destroy them.
According to the Hezbollah leader, Israel is afraid to go to war against the terrorist movement, which has unprecedented numbers, and continued that Israeli drone flights over Lebanon have ceased "due to the superiority of Hezbollah's air defenses."
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UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis, U.S. Assistant Secretary David Schenker, U.S. ambassador to Algeria John Desrocher, and U.S. ambassador in Lebanon Dorothy Shea at the first round of Israeli-Lebanese border talks in Naqura
(Photo: AFP/U.S. Embassy)
In addition, Nasrallah said he was opposed to the sharing of offshore gas with the Jewish state and does not really care about the negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem on the determination of the exclusive economic zones of the countries.
"We do not consider ourselves concerned by the technical discussions on the delimitation of the maritime border with Israel," he said.