Hizbullah Refused to Meet Carter: We Don΄t Meet Backers of Zionist Terrorism

Source: Al-Manar TV, 10-12-2008

Hizbullah has refused to meet visiting former US president Jimmy Carter to discuss legislative elections set for the spring, Carter's spokesman said on Wednesday. "We have sought meetings with all the main parliamentary blocs and parties in the upcoming election and Hizbullah was one of those meetings we had requested," Rick Jasculca, a spokesman for the Carter Center, said. "Hizbullah declined the request," he added without providing further detail.

A main focus of Carter's four-day visit is to discuss with the country's rival political factions the possibility of providing election observers from his center for the elections next spring.

"Hizbullah does not meet with anyone from a US administration which supports Zionist terrorism," said Mohammad Raad, the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc. But he added that his group is not opposed to election monitors being sent to Lebanon to oversee the parliamentary vote. "We are not concerned with election monitoring, we don't reject it," Raad said. "We will accept whatever decision the cabinet takes."

Meanwhile, Carter, who started on Tuesday an official visit to Beirut, held on Wednesday talks with President Michel Suleiman and visited headquarters of UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon.
Speaking to reporters at the Baabda Presidential Palace, the US former President expressed hope the forthcoming parliamentary elections would be honest and transparent. He also expressed hope to visit Lebanon in the spring of 2009 to follow up the general elections.

Shortly after the talks with Suleiman, Carter was flown to the southern border town of Naqoura where he visited headquarters of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).