Hezbollah expects West to use new language in contacts

Hezbollah deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassem on Saturday said his Iranian-backed militant group expects new language from the West in dealing with it.

Kassem's comments came after Hezbollah officials said they will welcome public talks with Britain. He also said he welcomed a new European approach toward the militant Lebanese group.

Earlier in the week, Britain announced its decision to reestablish ties with Hezbollah as part of an effort to press the militant organization to disarm.

The U.S. State Department said late Friday that it has not changed its stance regarding Hezbollah, and that it feels the time is not right for renewed contacts with the Lebanon-based militant group.

The U.S. also said it would closely follow developments between the U.K. and Hezbollah.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday explained his country's decision to renew contacts with Hezbollah.

"In the Lebanon, they have one Cabinet member and we've sanctioned low-level contacts with them so that we can make absolutely clear our determination to see United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for the disbanding of militias among other things in Lebanon, taken forward with real speed," Miliband said Friday on BBC Radio 4's Today program.

The resolution also ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which Israel launched after Hezbollah guerillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Miliband said Hezbollah's military wing remains on Britain's list of outlawed groups.

Hezbollah calls move a 'step in the right direction

Earlier Friday, a spokesman for the Lebanese Shi'ite group said Britain had taken a "step in the right direction" by signaling willingness to talk to Hezbollah.

"This policy revision is a step in the right direction and we shall see how it translates in practical terms," Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim al-Moussawi said.

Britain's Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said this week that his country had reconsidered its position because Hezbollah had joined a national unity government in July, formed under a deal to end a paralyzing political conflict in Lebanon.

Britain's policy since 2005 had been to shun contact with the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Islamist group, which was founded in the early 1980s to fight Israeli occupation of Lebanon and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

In announcing the attempts to re-establish contact, Britain's Foreign Office said Thursday that its ambassador attended a meeting in January in Beirut alongside a Hezbollah lawmaker, and that the government was seeking to build relations with other legislators attached to the group.

"Our objective with Hezbollah remains to encourage them to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role in Lebanese politics, in line with a range of UN Security Council Resolutions," the ministry said Thursday.

Hezbollah itself makes no distinction between its political and military functions. It also runs medical, educational, social and reconstruction activities. Its leadership is highly centralized and all members undergo military training.

The group, which has 14 members of parliament, has taken part in successive Lebanese governments since 2005. It has just one minister in the current cabinet, but along with its allies, wields veto power over important decisions.