Israeli president to press EU on declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organisation – report
Israeli president Shimon Peres will urge European Uninon leaders to put Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite group, on its list of terror organisations, during a week-long historic state visit to the European Union and France, the European Jewish Press (EJP) agency reports.
Last month, Peres called on the EU to blacklist Hezbollah after Bulgaria informed the other EU countries that the group was to be blamed for the July 2012 bombing of a bus in the Black Sea resort of Burgas which killed five Israeli tourists and their driver.
“The President will tell the EU leaders that every country needs to treat Hezbollah as a terror organisation,” his spokesperson told EJP.
Peres’s EU meetings “will take place in the context of the inquiry into the terror attack in Bulgaria which found that Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing and the subsequent discussions within Europe on the consequences.”
The EU has so far failed to take a decision on the Hezbollah issue due to a absence of unanimity among the 27 countries.
In Brussels, where he will start his March 5 to 12 2013 trip, Peres will meet his Bulgarian counterpart Rossen Plevneliev on the occasion of the official opening of an exhibition on 70 years since the Bulgarian Jewish community was saved from Nazi Holocaust death camps.
(Photo: Michael Thaidigsmann)
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