The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, on Saturday met a political official from Hezbollah during a visit to Beirut, as part of a push to avoid Lebanon being dragged into the Israel-Hamas war, AFP reported.
Borrell held talks with the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, Lebanese media reported.
An EU source confirmed the meeting, which came hours after Hezbollah terrorists fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base in northern Israel.
The source explained that the EU is "engaging in diplomatic dialogue with all relevant political representatives who have influence on the situation on the ground or have a stake in it".
Hezbollah has a strong political presence in Lebanon and has been a major part of the country’s cabinet in the past.
Speaking at a joint news conference with the Lebanese Foreign Minister on Saturday, Borrell said, "It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict. I am sending this message to Israel too: nobody will win from a regional conflict."
Hezbollah is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the West and even by some Arab countries, but some of those designations, most notably in the EU and in Britain, make a distinction between Hezbollah’s “military wing” and its political arm.