BEIRUT: Lebanon’s government on Tuesday tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict arms to the state by year end, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said, an unprecedented move that paves the way for disarming Hezbollah.
After a nearly six-hour cabinet session headed by President Joseph Aoun on disarming the Iran-backed militant group, Salam said the government “tasked the Lebanese army with setting an implementation plan to restrict weapons” to the army and other state forces “before the end of this year.”
The plan is to be presented to the cabinet by the end of August for discussion and approval, he told a press conference after the marathon session.
A November ceasefire deal that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah stated that Lebanese government authorities such as the army, security forces and local police are “the exclusive bearers of weapons in Lebanon.”
Salam said the cabinet would continue discussions this week on a proposal from US envoy Tom Barrack that includes a timetable for disarming Hezbollah.
Information Minister Paul Morcos said that the cabinet “set a deadline of the end of the year to consolidate arms in the hands of the Lebanese state.”
He said Hezbollah-affiliated Health Minister Rakan Nassereldine and Environment Minister Tamara Elzein, who is affiliated with its ally the Amal movement, “withdrew from the session because they did not agree with the cabinet decision.”
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said a short time earlier, as the cabinet was in session, that “any timetable presented for implementation under... Israeli aggression cannot be agreed to.”
“Whoever looks at the deal Barrack brought doesn’t find an agreement but dictates,” he said, arguing that “it removes the strength and capabilities of Hezbollah and Lebanon entirely.”
