Hariri says he’ll return to Lebanon, talk to Hezbollah
BEIRUT — In his first TV interview since he announced his resignation last weekend, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Sunday he will return to his country from Saudi Arabia “within days” to seek a settlement with the militant group Hezbollah, his rivals in his coalition government.
Hariri denied he was being held against his will and said he was compelled to resign to save Lebanon from imminent dangers, which he didn’t specify.
He repeated several times that he resigned to create a “positive shock” and draw attention to the danger of siding with Iran, Hezbollah’s main patron, in regional conflicts.
“We are in the eye of the storm,” Hariri said.
A political crisis has gripped Lebanon since Hariri read his televised resignation from
Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4 in which he accused Iran of meddling in his country.
The live interview on Future TV was designed in part to dispel rumors that Hariri, who holds Lebanese and Saudi citizenship, was under house arrest. Many feared Saudi Arabia was dragging Lebanon into its rivalry with Iran and called for Hariri to return home to ensure he was acting of his own free will.
“I am free to travel tomorrow if I wanted to. But I have a family. I saw what happened when my father was martyred. I don’t want the same thing to happen to my children,” Hariri said.
His father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut in 2005.
Hariri said the unity government he formed a year ago was supposed to stick to an agreement not to interfere in regional affairs but that Hezbollah has not kept its end of the deal.
“If we want to go back on the resignation, we have to return to the policy of distancing ourselves” from regional conflicts.