US: Hezbollah should not be part of Lebanese government

US Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus said Friday in Beirut that her country has set “clear red lines” against the influence of the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon and that this implies its exclusion from the government currently in the process of formation.

“I am not afraid of Hezbollah and I am not afraid of them because they have been defeated militarily. And in the United States we have established clear red lines that they will not be able to terrorize the Lebanese people, which includes being part of the government,” Ortagus said at a press conference in Lebanon, where he is on an official visit.

“So the end of Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Lebanon and the world has begun and this is over,” he added.

Lebanon ended two long institutional deadlocks in January with the appointment of Joseph Aoun as President of the Republic and Nawaf Salam as the new Prime Minister-designate, but the latter has yet to fulfill his mandate to form a government three weeks later.

The biggest obstacle to finding a division of portfolios that is acceptable to the different political blocs is the handing over of certain ministries to the Shiites, represented mainly by Hezbollah and its ally Amal.

Ortagus on Friday applauded the work of the new Lebanese leaders and all those committed to ending corruption in the country, implementing reforms and “ensuring that Hezbollah is not part of this government in any way,” as well as maintaining its “military defeat.”

“This begins, of course, with the pressure that President Trump is now putting on the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop them from funding their terror proxies in the region,” the special envoy said during her speech.

Yesterday, the new Trump administration imposed its first sanctions against Iran's oil sector, Hezbollah's main ally, which it accuses of financing and supplying weapons.

According to the US representative, Washington is also working to contain the expansion of Iran's nuclear programme, and to ensure that Tehran cannot do "harm" to Lebanon or other countries in the Middle East, as it has been "allowed to do for decades".

Hezbollah is in a political and military slump after its war against Israel, which ended last November with a ceasefire agreement, and after the overthrow of the regime of its ally Bashar al Assad in neighbouring Syria. EFE and Aurora