Region | Lebanon
Prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah near
UN-sponsored indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah over a prisoner exchange have made major progress, Lebanese political sources said on Monday.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:06 May 27, 2008
Beirut: UN-sponsored indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah over a prisoner exchange have made major progress, Lebanese political sources said on Monday.
A German mediator held talks with officials of Hezbollah in Beirut last week and a breakthrough appeared close. The sources gave no further details, the sources said.
Commenting on the report, an Israeli security source in occupied Jerusalem said: "There is progress in the talks. We have been seeing developments since the early part of this month." The source did not elaborate.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech marking the eighth anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon, reiterated his vow that all Lebanese prisoners, including the long-held Samir Qantar, would be released soon.
"Very soon Samir and Samir's brothers will be among you in Lebanon," he told a crowd of tens of thousands via a video link.
The secretive negotiations are designed to secure the release of two Israeli soldiers in return for Lebanese and Arab prisoners.
Israeli military reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were captured by Hezbollah fighters in a cross border raid on on July 12, 2006.
Qantar, 46, who took part in a 1979 raid that killed two Israeli men and a four-year-old girl, is the longest serving of at least six Lebanese prisoners in Israel.
The UN-appointed German negotiator began his mission in late 2006. Very little has been heard of the talks since then.
Israel says the soldiers were seriously wounded when they were seized. Hezbollah has refused to say whether the men are dead or alive.
Israel and Hezbollah last exchanged prisoners last October, swapping the remains of an Israeli civilian for a captive Lebanese man and the bodies of two Hezbollah fighters.
In 2004, Israel released more than 400 Lebanese and other Arab prisoners for an Israeli businessman and the remains of three soldiers.
Nasrallah's promise
In yesterday's speech Nasrallah vowed his group would not use its arms to achieve political gains.
"I reaffirm the Doha agreement clause that prevents the use of arms to attain political goals," Nasrallah said.
"The resistance's arms are to fight the enemy, liberate lands and prisoners, and defend Lebanon and nothing else," he pledged, referring to his Shiite group's enmity with Israel which pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000.
Nasrallah also ruled out the state's weaponry being used to settle domestic accounts.
"The government's arms or those of the army or armed forces are to defend the nation, the people and their rights, the government, and to maintain security," Nasrallah said.
"The government's arms cannot be used to settle accounts with a political opponent. The government's arms cannot be used to target the resistance and its arms," he added.
"All arms must remain in the service of the goal they were created for," Nasrallah said.
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