US unhappy with UK over Hezbollah

Washington: A senior US official has expressed strong disagreement with the British decision to begin contacts with the Lebanese group Hezbollah, revealing a rare split between the two closely allied nations.

The official said on Thursday the administration of President Barack Obama doesn't believe, as the British do, that there are separate military, political and social wings of the Shiite group, and that it is acceptable to deal with the political organisation.

He expressed revulsion at the group, which is now a major part of Lebanon's elected government but is also officially listed by the US government as a terrorist group.

"We don't see the differences between the integrated leadership that they see," said the official.

Hezbollah, with support from Iran and Syria, is a dominating presence in the Shiite communities of central and southern Lebanon.

It is a social welfare organisation as well as a political party and a military force. It has also been responsible for terrorist killings, going back decades, including of Americans, and is a major antagonist of Israel.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said last week that the British government had decided to begin low-level contacts with the group as a means of communicating with an organisation that now has an important role in the governing of Lebanon.

He said that the British intended to emphasize in these talks, for example, that it was time to disband the militias, such as that of Hezbollah, that exert factional power in the ethnically divided country.

Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman, said last Friday said the US was not ready to follow the British example. But he did not criticise the British decision.

The Obama administration's readiness to reach out to adversary regimes, such as Syria and Iran, has been one of the hallmarks of its new foreign policy.

But the administration has shown no interest in talking to groups on its official terrorist registry, such as Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.

A State Department official explained that the difference is that governments such as Syria and Iran, though they may support terrorism, can be productively engaged because as governments they can be swayed on the basis of their national interest.

Unlike terrorist groups, "they have the interests of states and may respond to interaction", this official said.