Beirut, April 20: Prime Minister Saad Hariri has likened Israel’s charges of Scud missile transfers to its Hezbollah foes in Lebanon to the fallacy over mass destruction weapons that led to the invasion of Iraq.
“All of a sudden, the press is telling us of the presence in Lebanon of Scud missiles, which are enormous missiles,” Hariri said during a visit to Rome, quoted in a statement issued by the premier’s office in Beirut on Tuesday.
“These allegations are similar to those which were made of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” before the 2003 US-led invasion, he told a gathering of Lebanese expatriates.
“Such arms were not found,” he noted.
“We are being accused of the same thing. They are trying to play out the same scenario in Lebanon,” said Hariri, referring to Israel. “Before every tourist season, they raise threats against Lebanon.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres on April 13 accused Syria of providing Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles, prompting Washington to warn that the trade “potentially puts Lebanon at significant risk.”
On Monday, the US State Department summoned a senior Syrian diplomat and demanded an “immediate” end to arms transfers to Hezbollah.
“The most senior Syrian diplomat present in Washington today, Deputy Chief of Mission Zouheir Jabbour, was summoned to the Department of State to review Syria’s provocative behavior concerning the potential transfer of arms to Hezbollah,” department deputy spokesman Gordon Duguid said in a statement.
Last week, an MP of the Shiite movement Hezbollah said that US statements over the Israeli allegations on Scud deliveries served to encourage Israel to attack Lebanon.
“With this position, (the Americans) are encouraging Israel to carry out an aggression against Lebanon that they are trying to endorse at the international level,” MP Ali Fayyad said.
“The United States is thus placing itself in a position of complicity in the event of aggression and it will have to take responsibility,” he said.
Fayyad said Hezbollah did not comment on “Israeli inventions on its arsenal” but Peres’s accusation had increased tension in the region.
Syria has denied any such arms transfers.
—Agencies