By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Former US President Jimmy Carter said Friday that he would have been "delighted" to meet Hizbullah officials and that he regrets the meeting didn't take place during his current visit to Lebanon.
Carter spent five days talking to top Lebanese leaders and members of parliamentary blocs but didn't meet with lawmakers from the terror group Hizbullah. The Iranian-backed Shiite group is on the US State Department's terrorist list.
The former US leader had said he was ready to meet Hizbullah but they refuse to meet current or former US presidents.
Carter has offered that his Atlanta-based Carter Center monitor Lebanon's parliament elections next year. The vote will be fiercely contested between Western-backed anti-Syrian groups that hold majority seats in the current 128-member parliament and a Hizbullah-led coalition supported by Syria and Iran.