Gulf states slam Hezbollah involvement in Syria conflict

PanARMENIAN.Net - Foreign ministers from Gulf Arab states condemned at their meeting on Sunday, June 30 the interference of the Lebanese Shia militia group Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict and accused it of “undermining the efforts to settle the conflict peacefully.”

“This interference will prevent the efforts of holding the Geneva 2 conference [on settling the Syria conflict],” the foreign ministers said in a statement adopted after their meeting in the Bahraini capital of Manama, according to RIA Novosti.

The foreign ministers from the Gulf Arab states urged the Lebanese government to stick to “the policy of non-interference in the Syrian conflict.” The foreign ministers also supported a recent decision by Western and Arab nations in the Friends of Syria group to increase military aid to Syrian rebels to “restore the balance of power” ahead of the Geneva international conference on Syria.

Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah earlier admitted the militia group was involved in the Syrian armed conflict.

Hezbollah and Iran are believed to be the main allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad while some Persian Gulf countries openly support the Syrian opposition, including rebels fighting against the government troops.

In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed holding a second international conference on Syria. The planned gathering has been dubbed “Geneva 2” because the first such conference on Syria was held in Geneva last summer.