U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped up international pressure on Hezbollah to disarm, saying in a television interview aired Friday that the guerrilla group must surrender its weapons if it wants to remain part of Lebanon's political process.

Rice urged Hezbollah to lay down its arms according to the cease-fire that ended its war with Israel this summer, and choose between being a militant group and a legitimate political organization.

"If Hezbollah wants to be in politics... Hezbollah should be disarmed. You cannot have one foot in terror and the use of violence and the other foot in politics. It just doesn't work that way," Rice said in an interview with the privately-owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corp.

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"Hezbollah has to decide whether it's going to maintain its terrorist wing and remain a terrorist organization or whether it's going to ... be part the political process," she said.

The interview was taped at Rice's office in Washington, and conducted by May Chidiac, a Lebanese journalist who lost an arm and a leg in car bombing in Lebanon in September 2005.

Hezbollah is under heavy international pressure to surrender its weapons, but the Iranian- and Syrian-backed group - which holds 11 seats in the Lebanese parliament and two spots in the Cabinet - has refused to disarm.

The U.S. government has labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization and blames it for the deaths of 241 U.S. Marines in the bombing of their Beirut barracks in 1983, as well as for two attacks on the U.S. embassy in Beirut and the 1985 TWA hijacking that killed an American serviceman on board. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied such accusations and says it now opposes terrorism.

Rice also urged the Lebanese government to end what it called Hezbollah's "state within a state" and prevent weapons from reaching the militant group.

"I'm counting on Lebanon to live up to its obligations, and I'm counting on Lebanon to want to evolve to a normal state," Rice told the satellite channel. "And a normal state has an army and police that answer to the state, not to a state within a state."

Rice also warned that as Lebanon tries to rebuild, some people might try to destabilize its Western-backed government.

"We've heard that there are people who would like to intimidate or assassinate again," she said, referring to the 2005 assassinations of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other anti-Syrian politicians. She did not elaborate.

Asked if Syria was trying to destabilize Lebanon following its withdrawal last year, Rice said: "It's not any great secret that there are concerns about what Syria, which once occupied the country, might try and do through continuing contacts in the country. But I don't want accuse any one place. I just want to make very clear that the international community believes there should be no foreign intimidation of the Lebanese people."