Lebanese president slams Iran, Hezbollah, and IRGC: It’s not your country, it’s ours

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun delivered one of his sharpest rebukes of Hezbollah, Iran and the IRGC on Friday, telling Tehran, “It’s not your country, it’s our country.

“It’s not your job to interfere in our country,” Aoun said during an interview at the presidential palace.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Aoun also accused Tehran of using Lebanon as a “bargaining chip” in its negotiations with the US, calling it “unacceptable.”

During his interview with CNN, Aoun called out Hezbollah and its secretary-general. “The Lebanese people are not your people,” he said, adding that Hezbollah must understand that there is no other way out of the war but to sit and talk “to save what is left” of Lebanon.

Aoun has repeatedly sought to distance Lebanon from regional conflicts and has said decisions concerning the country’s sovereignty and security must be made by the Lebanese state alone.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday urged Iran to stop treating his country, where Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah are at war, as a “bargaining chip” in its negotiations with Washington on the Middle East conflict.

“If I may address a word to Iran, it is this: have mercy on our south, stop treating it and its people as merely a bargaining chip to improve the terms of your negotiations,” Salam told a press conference for a UN aid appeal for Lebanon.

With agencies

Read more:

Israel army warns it will attack three villages north of Lebanon’s Litani River

Israel strikes southern Lebanon after evacuation warnings to several villages

Hezbollah chief demands ‘comprehensive’ ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon