Hizbollah says prisoner swap talks near decisive stage

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hizbollah said prisoner exchange negotiations with its arch-foe Israel were reaching a decisive stage but warned it could resort to force to free the last Lebanese detainees if talks failed. “We are involved and are closer than at any time in the past to the hour of truth on this issue, the issue of negotiations,” Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said late on Friday. “When we fail on the issue of negotiations, which must be decided very soon one way or another, then we have a commitment and only one choice left before us, the one that returned our dear brothers,” he told a rally. Israel and Shi’ite Muslim Hizbollah carried out a German-negotiated swap in January 2004 that freed hundreds of Arab prisoners for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. reuters

Home | Foreign