June 16 (Reuters) – Hezbollah said on Tuesday it believes Iran will not sign a final nuclear deal with Washington unless Israel withdraws from Lebanon, as Iran’s top diplomat said Israel’s continued troop presence in Lebanon would be considered a breach of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Israeli troops still occupy a swathe of territory in southern Lebanon that they seized in their three-month air and land campaign against Hezbollah, which began after the Iran-backed group fired at Israel on March 2 in support of Tehran.
Fighting in Lebanon has eased significantly after the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding but has not stopped in full, and Israel has said troops would remain in the country’s south.
Hezbollah has objected to Israel’s continued occupation. On Tuesday, the group’s media office said it understood that Iran would demand an Israeli withdrawal as part of the next round of U.S.-Iran talks, set to begin after the two formally sign their memorandum of understanding this coming Friday.
Those talks are set to address difficult issues like the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
“We believe there will be no nuclear deal between Iran and the United States if Israel does not withdraw,” Hezbollah’s media office told Reuters, the first time the group linked Israel’s withdrawal to a possible nuclear deal.
It said an Israeli withdrawal would be the result of, and not a precondition for, those talks. It said it had received Iranian assurances that any Israeli breach of the Lebanon ceasefire would affect those upcoming negotiations.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Tuesday that the end of the regional war must include the end of conflict in Lebanon, including “the end of the occupation” of Lebanese land.
“Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they have occupied in this war, a full end to the war has not been achieved,” he said.
Araqchi added that any Israeli attack on Lebanon or the continued occupation of Lebanese land “will, in our view, be considered a violation of the memorandum of understanding.”
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai;Editing by Alison Williams, Alexandra Hudson)
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