Americans directly interfering in Lebanon’s affairs, President Aoun says

President Michel Aoun has censured Washington’s ‘direct’ interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon, against the backdrop of comments by US Ambassador to Beirut Dorothy Shea.

“The Americans are directly interfering in the Lebanese domestic affairs; and this is unacceptable,” Aoun said in an exclusive interview with the Beirut-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network on Sunday.

He cautioned the US envoy over making more caustic remarks against the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, emphasizing that the group represents the Lebanese society and enjoys popularity among people.

Earlier in the day, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti summoned Shea over her anti-Hezbollah criticism.

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Al-Mayadeen reported that Hitti will meet with Dorothy Shea at 3:00 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) on Monday to inform her that, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, an ambassador must not interfere in the domestic affairs of another country, and that her speech must not seek to pit Lebanese people against each other.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between countries.

On Saturday, Lebanese judge Mohamad Mazeh in the southern city of Tyre banned local and foreign media outlets in the country from interviewing the US Ambassador for a year, after Shea told Saudi-owned al-Hadath television news network that Washington has “great concerns” over Hezbollah’s role in the government.

Hezbollah’s growing popularity in the Arab and Muslim world after the resistance movement shattered the Israeli military’s myth of invincibility during the 33-day military offensive on Lebanon back in the summer of 2006 has been a matter of serious concern for the Tel Aviv regime and its Western allies.

The resistance movement’s heroic defense as well as its vehement opposition to any foreign intervention in Lebanon’s domestic affairs has turned the group into a major stakeholder in the country’s political and military domains.