The head of Iran’s top security body, Ali Larijani, will visit Iraq on Monday before heading to Lebanon, state media said, amid a major push from the Lebanese government to disarm the Hezbollah terror group, which is backed by Tehran.
“Ali Larijani departs today (Monday) for Iraq and then Lebanon on a three-day visit, his first foreign trip since taking office last week,” state television reported.
Larijani will sign a bilateral security agreement in Iraq before heading to Lebanon, where he will meet senior Lebanese officials and figures.
His trip to Lebanon comes after Tehran expressed strong opposition to a Lebanese government plan to disarm Tehran’s ally Hezbollah, a stance condemned by Beirut as a “unacceptable interference.”
“Our cooperation with the Lebanese government is long and deep. We consult on various regional issues. In this particular context, we are talking to Lebanese officials and influential figures in Lebanon,” Larijani told state TV before departing.
“In Lebanon, our positions are already clear. Lebanese national unity is important and must be preserved in all circumstances. Lebanon’s independence is still important to us and we will contribute to it,” he added.
Iran appointed 68-year-old Larijani to head the Supreme National Security Council, which is responsible for laying out Iran’s defense and security strategy. Its decisions must be approved by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Larijani’s trip “aims to contribute to the maintenance of peace in the Middle East region.”
He said that Iran recognized Lebanon’s “right to defend itself against the aggression of the Zionist regime (Israel),” adding that this would be “impossible without military capabilities and weapons.”
Before its war with Israel, Hezbollah was believed to be better armed than the Lebanese military. It built its popularity, in part, on resistance to Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for nearly two decades until 2000.
On Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, described the plan to disarm Hezbollah as compliance “to the will of the United States and Israel.”
Lebanon’s foreign ministry slammed the comments as “flagrant and unacceptable interference,” reminding “the leadership in Tehran that Iran would be better served by focusing on the issues of its own people.”
The Lebanese government on Thursday voted to approve a US proposal that would ultimately lead to disarming the Hezbollah terror group, after tasking the army earlier in the week with drawing up a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year, a challenge to Hezbollah.
The decision to disarm the group prompted Hezbollah ministers and Muslim Shiite allies to walk out of the cabinet’s discussion on the plan, three Lebanese political sources told Reuters.
Submitted by US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the region, Tom Barrack, the plan sets out the most detailed steps yet for disarming the Iran-backed group, which has rejected mounting calls to disarm since last year’s devastating war with Israel.
In addition to disarming Hezbollah, the US proposal would also lead to ending Israel’s military operations in the country and the withdrawal of its troops from five positions in southern Lebanon.
Israel dealt major blows to Hezbollah in an offensive last year, the climax of a conflict that began on October 8, 2023, when the Lebanese group started firing rockets and drones at Israel on a daily basis, in support of its ally Hamas, which had invaded the Jewish state from Gaza a day earlier to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
The US’s disarmament proposal aims to “extend and stabilize” a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel brokered in November.
Israel — which routinely carries out airstrikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, saying it is responding to violations of the agreement — has already signaled it would not hesitate to launch military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.