Reports: Iranian envoy meeting Hezbollah leader

A top Iranian envoy was in Syria today for talks on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in a meeting that brought together the guerrilla organisation’s two key sponsors, according to Iranian news reports.

A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah was taking part in the session.

Kuwait’s Al-Siyassah newspaper, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with “Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories”.

Al-Siyassah said it learned of the meeting from “well-informed Syrian sources” it did not identify.

According to the newspaper, Nasrallah was moving through Damascus with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal clerical garb.

The Mehr news agency in Iran said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was in Damascus for meetings on the crisis, but gave no other details. Similar reports were carried by the Iranian Labour News Agency and the Fars agency.

Al-Siyassah said Larijani would meet Syrian President Hafez Assad and Nasrallah.

There was no mention of Larijani’s travels in Iranian state-run media.

None of the reports could be independently confirmed.

Iran and Syria are the main backers of Hezbollah, which touched off the fighting with a cross-border raid on July 12 that captured two Israeli soldiers.

Yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadeinjad called for a ceasefire, but did not give any specifics on who it could be achieved.

Larijani was hand-picked for the security post by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and also serves as Iran’s key nuclear negotiator in the stand-off with the West.

An interview with Nasrallah broadcast by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television early yesterday morning was taped in a Syrian intelligence studio, Al-Siyassah said.