Assange’s TV debut features Hezbollah chief

PanARMENIAN.Net - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange interviewed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday, April 17 in the debut of his "The World Tomorrow" talk show on Russia's state-funded RT cable broadcaster, AFP reported.

Assange remains under house arrest and spoke to Nasrallah, who is considered a "terrorist" by both the United States and Israel, from his study in London via a computer video link.

The English-language channel that is funded by the Kremlin and openly promotes Moscow's views on global affairs with the slogan "Question More," had boasted that the choice of guest would irritate many viewers. Assange in his introduction called Nasrallah "one of the most extraordinary figures in the Middle East."

"I won't be surprised if after the first show the hawks want not just to shut down Assange but us as well," wrote channel director Margarita Simonyan on her Twitter account, while stressing that Assange chose the guest.

Speaking from a "secret location in Lebanon," Nasrallah beamed in a friendly-toned interview in which he laid out the group's position on the conflict in Syria, flanked by the flags of Lebanon and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington, with numerous other Western countries sharing that view, but Russia does not back the same position and has held direct talks with its leaders.

Nasrallah, in a comment he said he was making for the first time, said that Hezbollah, while supporting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in the conflict, had also contacted Syrian opposition groups. He said Hezbollah wanted "to encourage them and to facilitate the process of dialogue with the regime, but these parties rejected dialogue."

Ahead of the show, the controversial founder of the whistle-blowing website admitted he was bound to face criticism for airing his show on a Kremlin-funded channel. In a promotional interview to RT, he said he expected to be called an "enemy combatant, traitor (for) getting into bed with the Kremlin and interviewing terrible radicals from around the world."