Acting Iranian foreign minister meets Lebanese officials on Beirut visit скачать в хорошем качестве

Acting Iranian foreign minister meets Lebanese officials on Beirut visit

(3 Jun 2024) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4498080 RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Beirut - 3 June 2024 1. Various of acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani with Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib 2. SOUNDBITE (Farsi) Ali Bagheri Kani, Acting Iranian Foreign Minister: "All regional countries, especially Muslim countries, should make a collective movement to confront the aggression by the Zionists and to support the Palestinians, particularly in Rafah. In that framework, we emphasised holding an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Islamic cooperation organisation (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) as a collective and firm action." 3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister: "We spoke about what is happening in the south and I asserted the Lebanese position that is against the war, as proven by the events starting Oct. 7 and to this day. And I explained to his Excellency the Lebanese vision to finding sustainable solutions that would restore calm and stability to southern Lebanon." ++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++ STORYLINE: Iran’s acting foreign minister arrived in Lebanon on Monday, his first official diplomatic visit since his predecessor died in a helicopter crash last month. The country's interim top diplomat Ali Bagheri Kani met with his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib, and praised the "close relations" between the two countries. Speaking after the meeting, Bagheri Kani said countries in the region "should make a collective movement to confront the aggression" being carried out by Israel in the war with Hamas. Bou Habib said Lebanon, for its part, wants to avoid a wider war and is looking for "sustainable solutions that would restore calm and stability to southern Lebanon." Iran backs a number of armed factions in the region, of which Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah is widely seen as the most powerful. Hezbollah would be Tehran’s first line of defence in case of a direct conflict between Iran and Israel. Hezbollah has been clashing with Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border since October, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. The cross-border fighting has intensified in recent weeks, since Israel’s incursion into the key town of Rafah in southern Gaza. The border fighting has killed more than 400 people on the Lebanese side — most of them militants but also including more than 70 civilians and noncombatant — and at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians on the Israeli side. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Bagheri Kani would visit Lebanon and then Syria “to meet with the two countries’ officials as well as the officials of the resistance front to discuss ways to counter (Israel).” Bagheri Kani’s predecessor, Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hard-liner close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, died in a helicopter crash on May 19 in a mountainous area near Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, along with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and a delegation of other officials. AP video shot by: Fay Abuelgasim =========================================================== Clients are reminded to adhere to all listed restrictions and to check the terms of their licence agreements. For further assistance, please contact the AP Archive on: Tel +44(0)2074827482 Email: [email protected]. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...