Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Gheit blamed Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah for the summer's Lebanon war, alleging that the organization had instigated the conflict to flout the 1989 Taif Agreement, under which Lebanon was supposed to disarm Shi'ite groups. The second Lebanon war: JPost.com special report In an interview on Egyptian public television on Saturday night, Abu Gheit said that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had begun the war to justify Hizbullah's existence, Israel Radio reported. The Taif Agreement, negotiated by the surviving members of Lebanon's 1972 parliament, addressed political reform, the ending of the Lebanese Civil War, the establishment of special relations between Lebanon and Syria, and a basis for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, passed in 2004, echoed many elements of the Taif Agreement, calling for Lebanese sovereignty over all of its land and called upon "foreign forces" to withdraw from Lebanon and to cease intervening in Lebanese politics. The resolution also called on all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias to disband and declared support for a "free and fair electoral process".
