The office of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora hit back at Hezbollah Chief Hasan Nasrallah 's accusations concerning the case of missing Iranian diplomats in Lebanon since 1982, local NBN TV reported Friday.
A statement by Seniora's office late Thursday said the government sent a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sep. 13, 2008, urging him to help resolving the fate of the four Iranian diplomats who went missing in Lebanon in 1982 during the Israeli invasion, Xinhua reported.
The statement came in response to a declaration by Nasrallah on Thursday, in which he said the "Lebanese government is responsible for revealing the fate of four Iranian diplomats who were kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982."
Nasrallah also revealed that the Israelis have provided Hezbollah with a report on the fate of the four Iranians, saying they were kidnapped by the Lebanese Forces (LF) militia at a checkpoint in north Lebanon, and were killed later.
The LF has the key answers, Nasrallah said, adding "if they turned them over to Israel, they should say, and if they killed them, they should turn over their bodies."
Nasrallah was more specific when he explained that the LF party is represented in the current Lebanese cabinet, and holds the ministry of justice, and therefore the Lebanese cabinet is responsible for disclosing the fate of the missing Iranians.
However, LF parliamentarian Antoine Zahra said Thursday that his party is not involved in the case of the four missing Iranian diplomats, blaming assassinated LF commander Elie Hobeika for the case.
Hobeika, also former Lebanese minister, was killed in a car bomb near his resident in east Beirut on Jan. 24, 2002.