Sayyed Nasrallah: Achievement Dedicated to All Lebanon

Al-Manar

"02/07/2008 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah held a press conference to explain the circumstances of the swap deal with Israel.

Sayyed Nasrallah began his conference with criticizing a British decision to consider what it called "Hezbollah's armed wing" as a terrorist group. "This decision does not surprise us. I personally consider it a normal decision by a country that contributed in the establishment of the Zionist entity; a country that played a major role in uprooting the Palestinians from their lands; a country that made the Belford Promise; a country that honored the author who made the ugliest accusations ever against Prophet Mohammed. Who are the fighters of the Islamic Resistance compared with our Prophet. The decision is a normal one and I believe it came somehow late," his eminence said.

The Hezbollah chief however stopped at the timing of the British decision. "The timing is sketchy, especially when the West as well as the Arab world is interested in the swap deal."

Sayyed Nasrallah said that the swap deal establishes the Islamic Resistance's respect of man, "and this is why Britain is seeking to present a different image." "The coming decades will witness all attempts to falsely charge the resistance vanish in the wind," his eminence said.

Going back to the swap deal, Sayyed Nasrallah explained that a German official commissioned by the United Nations conducted the mediation. "The mediation is international not German," he explained. "This does not mean that the German government did not exert any effort. On the contrary, it interfered whenever things got complicated."

The Hezbollah chief stressed the only concern was the humane concern that all detainees return and the fate of the missing is determined. "Our condition was to keep the talks secret for the safety of negotiations…Therefore, we distanced ourselves from the media and we were not the source of any leak."......

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed Hezbollah did not link between the two captured soldiers and Gilad Shalit who was captured by Hamas in occupied Palestine. "We agreed with Hamas not to tie our negotiations with Israel to theirs because this will complicate things…But we insisted on the Palestinian issue because of its symbolic indications. So, we accepted this agreement, and we think it is important. Today I officially announce that we accept the agreement. Palestinian detainees especially women and children will be released. The UN chief will issue something in this regard and so will Olmert," he said......."