BEIRUT, (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used a visit to Lebanon yesterday to assure the government that Iran would stand by Beirut in confronting what he called hostilities from neighbouring Israel.
Ahmadinejad, making the first official state visit by an Iranian president to Lebanon, was given a tumultuous welcome by thousands of Shi’ite Muslims who lined the road from the airport, throwing rice and petals at his motorcade. “The Iranian nation will always stand beside the Lebanese nation and will never abandon them … We will surely help the Lebanese nation against animosities, mainly staged by the Zionist regime (Israel),” he said.Israel and Tehran’s Shi’ite ally Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in 2006, a conflict which killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Ahmadinejad, who was due to visit Lebanon’s border region with Israel on Thursday, told a rally organised by Hezbollah that Israel would pay a price for any aggressive action.
“(Israel) feels it has reached a dead end, and may stage new treacherous acts to rescue its existence and to create opportunities for itself,” he told a crowd of thousands, waving Iranian and Lebanese flags.
“I announce here and now that any new treacherous act will merely shorten this fabricated regime’s disgraceful life”.
The United States said Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon showed he was continuing his “provocative ways.” Washington wants to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme and says Iran’s support for Hezbollah militants undermines Lebanese sovereignty.
Ahmadinejad’s trip has also alarmed pro-Western politicians in Lebanon’s fractious unity government, who had said that he treats Lebanon like “an Iranian base on the Mediterranean”.
But in a message apparently aimed at addressing those protests and easing months of political tension, Ahmadinejad stressed Iranian backing for all Lebanese.
“We support a strong and unified Lebanon. We will always back the Lebanese government and its nation,” he said after talks with President Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian. Lebanon’s Energy and Water Minister Gebran Bassil said Iran had agreed a $450 million loan for Lebanon to support power and water projects. He said Ahmadinejad had stressed during the talks that “all the benefits of this visit would be for all the Lebanese”, rather than for a single faction.
