Arab states of the Gulf could take measures against the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, openly involved in the Syrian conflict, the head of their six-member bloc said on Sunday.
Arab states of the Gulf could take measures against the Lebanese Shiite
movement Hezbollah, openly involved in the Syrian conflict, the head of their
six-member bloc said on Sunday.
The Gulf Cooperation Council had "decided to look into taking measures
against Hezbollah's interests in the member states," GCC chief Abdullatif
al-Zayani told reporters at the end of a ministerial meeting in the Saudi city
of
Jeddah
.
Mr. Zayani gave no other details on the nature of the measures or the interests
to which he was referring.
Bahraini Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ghanim al-Buainain said that
"nobody could cover up Hezbollah's actions in regional countries.
"It is a terrorist organization and this is how
Gulf
states
see it," he added.
However, placing Hezbollah on the GCC's terror list was "a technical and
legal matter that needs to be further studied."
At the opening of the meeting, Mr. Buainain had called for "a serious stance
and united action to end the attacks on the interests of the Syrian people and
giving them the right to choose their political regime."
"We see this today as a clear and flagrant Iranian interference, alongside
its ally Hezbollah, in the Syrian crisis using all sorts of weapons and turning
Syria into a battle zone that has left thousands of Syrians dead," he
said.
Bahrain
,
which currently holds the GCC's rotating presidency, has branded the movement a
"terrorist organisation."
Hezbollah's men are fighting alongside Syrian government troops in a fierce
battle to retake the Syrian town of
Qusayr
from
mostly Sunni rebels.
The Gulf Cooperation Council is made up of six Sunni-ruled states:
Bahrain
,
Kuwait
,
Oman
,
Qatar
,
Saudi
Arabia
and the
United
Arab Emirates
.
Hezbollah, like Shiite-dominated
Iran
, is a
close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who hails from the Alawite
offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Gulf states
have
repeatedly accused
Iran
of
meddling in their affairs, a charge the Islamic republic categorically denies.
Violence in
Syria
has
killed more than 94,000 people since a brutal crackdown transformed democracy
protests that erupted in March 2011 into an armed conflict.
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