Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made a television appearance via video link on Thursday on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hezbollah’s Al Noor radio station .
“The radio station is part of the resistance.” He said.
He threatened Israel over the recent airstrikes near Damascus, suggesting that the Syrian government would retaliate by providing Hezbollah with more advanced weapons.
“The Syrian response to Israel was to insist that Syria will continue supplying the resistance with weapons. This is a critical strategic decision. Syria will give the resistance qualitative weapons, which the resistance has never received before.”
Nasrallah, did not specify the type of arms, Hezbollah will receive from Syria
He added :
“The second strategic response to Israeli airstrikes in Syria was to declare the beginning of a popular resistance campaign in the Golan Heights.
In response to Syria’s strategic decisions he said:
“We, the resistance in Lebanon, announce that we are ready to receive any sort of qualitative weapons even if it is going to disrupt the [regional] balance. We are ready to receive these weapons and we are competent enough to possess them. We will use these weapons to defend our people and our country.”
He added:
“We announce that we stand by the popular resistance in the Golan Heights and we offer both out military, financial and moral support in an effort to liberate the occupied territory.”
He praised the Syrian regime’s reaction to the Israeli airstrikes:
“All the recent events that have taken place illustrate that there is strong leadership guiding Syria in the battle against the enemy with nerves of steel and great wisdom, as well as calmness and courage. This will achieve victory, God willing.”
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the recent strikes. But Israeli leaders vowed to take military action to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining “game changing” weapons like chemical arms, which Syria is believed to possess in large quantities, and sophisticated long-range missiles that could hit anywhere in Israel from Hezbollah-controlled areas of southern Lebanon.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told recent visitors to Damascus that his government had decided to give Hezbollah “everything,” according to an article in the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar. He also said that Syria planned to become “a resistance country” and take a more active role in opposing Israel. Syria has long positioned itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause and as Israel’s greatest Arab foe, but since 1973 it has rarely clashed militarily with Israel.
He attacked the Arabs for doing nothing to resolve the Syrian crisis.
“A compromise must be reached in order to resolve the crisis in Syria. It is shameful to see the US work in Syria’s best interest, while the Arabs sit by and permit the destruction of their country.”
The United States has recently been seeking to exert more diplomacy in conjunction with Russia, Syria’s most powerful foreign supporter, aimed at starting negotiations to settle the Syrian conflict.
Lebanon cabinet
Addressing the situation in Lebanon Nasrallah said he wants the cabinet formed as soon as possible and the elections held on time:
“As far as Lebanon is concerned, we [Hezbollah] want to see formation of the cabinet as soon as possible, and we want the elections to be held on time even if a technical delay takes place. ”
He said he can work with PM Designate on forming the cabinet but insisted that Hezbollah wants a national unity goverment
“The opposition party nominated [PM-designate] Tammam Salam, who belongs to their ranks, and we accepted the nomination because [Salam] is a balanced [political] personality with whom we can work. We said we wanted a national unity and partnership cabinet and not a cabinet of defiance.”
He added that ” the participation of the parties in the cabinet should be relative to the number of parliamentary seats they hold”.
He concluded his speech by saying that his party will support in the parliament the Orthodox Gathering electoral law if put to a vote.
Speaker Nabih Berri has decided to hold a parliament session on May 15 to decide on an electoral law that will replace the 1960 law
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