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The
European Union has flatly rejected an Israeli call to blacklist Hezbollah as a
terrorist group, saying there is no such agreement among the bloc’s member
states.
"There
is no consensus for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist
organizations," Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose
country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said on Tuesday.
Israel's
hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the request for blacklisting
the Lebanese resistance movement while sitting alongside the Cypriot minister
at a news conference held after annual EU-Israel talks.
"The
time has come to put Hezbollah on the terrorist list of Europe,” Lieberman
urged. "It would give the right signal to the international community and
the Israeli people."
But
Kozakou-Marcoullis highlighted Hezbollah’s active role as a political party,
stating that the EU would consider the move if there were tangible evidence of
Hezbollah engaging in acts of terror.
Lieberman’s
call comes days after the sixth anniversary of Israel’s war against Lebanon in
July 2006, a 33-day conflict which ended in Hezbollah’s victory and heavy
losses on the Israeli side.
This
raised serious questions about Tel Aviv’s long-boasted military capabilities
and forced several Israeli commanders to resign over their poor handling of the
war.
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