Michel Suleiman wants Iran to arm Lebanese armed forces

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has once again called on Iran to arm his country’s armed forces.

Suleiman made the remarks upon his arrival in Beirut from New York where he attended the 66th UN General Assembly meeting, according to IRNA news agency.

“(The successive) Lebanese governments have not been able to offer a plan for equipping Lebanon’s armed forces; when I traveled to Iran (almost three years ago) I asked Tehran to provide (Lebanon’s) armed forces with weapons and we’re still waiting for a reply,” he told reporters.

Following Suleiman’s visit to Tehran and before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Beirut in 2010, the Iranian defense minister expressed Tehran’s country’s readiness to equip the Lebanese armed forces.

The decision, however, provoked furious reactions from the U.S. and the zionist regime, hence the issue sank into oblivion.

In separate meetings with the Lebanese prime minister in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered to provide arms to Lebanon’s armed forces.