Israel has welcomed a fresh call from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for Hizbullah to be disbanded.
"If Lebanon is a sovereign state with an army, it must have a monopoly over power and the situation where Lebanese political parties have armies is totally unacceptable," an Israeli Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post.
Ban said he was encouraged by the recent establishment of diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria, but called on the two countries to take further steps to improve security along the border. He said that Lebanon would not be a fully sovereign state until Hizbullah and other armed groups were disbanded. UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Hizbullah-Israel war, called for the dismantling of all militias in Lebanon.
The foreign ministers of Syria and Lebanon signed a document last week formalizing diplomatic ties between the two countries for the first time in their turbulent history. Syrian nationalists claim that Lebanon is really part of Syria.
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