Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on Wednesday held a press conference to explain the circumstances of the swap deal with Israel.
Firstly, Nasrallah began with criticizing a British decision to consider what it called "Hizbullah'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," he said.
The Hizbullah chief explained that a German official commissioned by the United Nations conducted the mediation. "The mediation is international not German," he stressed. "This does not mean that the German government did not exert any effort. On the contrary, it interfered whenever things got complicated."
He added that releasing Palestinian and Arab detainees was refused in principle, "but negotiations continued and we adhered to our principle. In the following months, some breakthroughs were made. As a result we made an exchange of the body of a drowned Israeli sailor with a detainee and the bodies of two martyrs. The issue of Samir Kintar had not been complete, but he was introduced to the deal not a long time ago and later on, the deal comprised all detainees."
Nasrallah conveyed Hizbullah agreed on technicalities with the mediator. "The only thing left is the timing that should be specified soon… but if we set a date, Israel will counter that. Nevertheless, I expect it will happen in a week or two."
Later, Nasrallah answered the questions of the medi arepresentatives. He refused to comment on a question about the possibility of undertaking future operations to capture Israeli soldiers.
