{"id":32581,"date":"2019-02-20T02:24:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32581"},"modified":"2019-02-20T02:24:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:24:01","slug":"us-voices-concern-over-hezbollahs-role-in-lebanese-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32581","title":{"rendered":"US voices concern over Hezbollah\u2019s role in Lebanese Cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1454981\/middle-east\" readability=\"49\">\n<p>\nBEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon expressed concerns Tuesday over the militant Hezbollah group\u2019s growing role in the new Cabinet, saying it does not contribute to stability.<br \/>Hezbollah, which also takes part in elections, has named a health minister and two other posts in Lebanon\u2019s Cabinet. US officials have called on Prime Minister Saad Hariri\u2019s new government to ensure the group does not receive support from public resources.<br \/>At a meeting with Hariri on Tuesday, Ambassador Elizabeth Richard said the Iran-backed Hezbollah continues to violate Lebanon\u2019s policy of non-involvement in regional conflicts by fighting in \u201cat least three countries.\u201d She was apparently referring to Syria, where the group fights alongside the government, and Iraq and Yemen, where Iran supports local armed groups.<br \/>\u201cI was also very frank with the prime minister about US concern over the growing role in the Cabinet of an organization that continues to maintain a militia that is not under the control of the government,\u201d Richard told reporters after the meeting.<br \/>She added that Hezbollah continues to make its own \u201cnational security decisions\u201d that \u201cendanger the rest of the country.\u201d<br \/>The US views Hezbollah as a terrorist group, but is a strong supporter of Lebanon\u2019s national army, supplying it with arms worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. Last week, the American Embassy said the US had delivered laser-guided rockets valued at more than $16 million to the Lebanese army.<br \/>Richard said last year alone, the United States provided more than $825 million in assistance, an increase from the year before. She said the US has also supported education and development programs to help Lebanese communities \u201cdeal with the unprecedented demands placed on them when their Syrian neighbors fled.\u201d<br \/>Lebanon is home to about a million Syrian refugees \u2014 a quarter of the tiny Mediterranean country\u2019s population \u2014 putting pressure on its crumbling infrastructure.<br \/>Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh Gharib briefed President Michel Aoun and Hariri on Tuesday about his visit to Syria the previous day, telling reporters that Syrian officials \u201cwere very positive and showed interest in facilitating\u201d refugees\u2019 return.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon expressed concerns Tuesday over the militant Hezbollah group\u2019s growing role in the new Cabinet, saying it does not contribute to stability.Hezbollah, which also takes part in elections, has named a health minister and two other posts in Lebanon\u2019s Cabinet. US officials have called on Prime Minister Saad Hariri\u2019s new&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}