Asia

Home page

Asia

Arthur Lenk: â€œThe vast majority of the people, who were killed and wounded, are HAMAS activistsâ€

05 January 2009 16:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Lachin Sultanova â€“ APA. â€œIsraelâ€™s goal in starting military operations is to attack, limit the terroristsâ€™ infrastructure and change the security situation,â€ Israelâ€™s ambassador to Azerbaijan Arthur Lenk said, APA reports.
The ambassador said Palestinians were not Israelâ€™s enemies, Israel wanted them to live in prosperity.
â€œIf tomorrow HAMAS says we do not want to fight any more, we do not want to continue any more, weâ€™ll stop today. We do not want to take control of Gaza, we do not want to reoccupy, return to control Gaza, we want Palestinians to be free and want a peaceful and better life for their children,â€ he said.

Asked about the number of casualties in the military operations, the diplomat said it was difficult to say it.
â€œThe vast majority of the people, who were killed and wounded, are terrorists, activists HAMAS people. Israel does not want to hurt anyone else, particularly to hurt women and children, but if it is the case, the blame is clearly on HAMAS, number one, they started the action, number two, they are hiding their soldiers in schools, mosques and hospitals,â€ he said.

Arthur Lenk assessed the opening of second front against Israel.
â€œHezbollah or Syria supposedly open second front against Israel from the north. We are ready to response to it. Leader of Hezbollah makes a statement everyday and supports Palestinians and we think that let him make such kind of statements. We want somebody to speak to Palestinians about peace, stability and tranquility. Palestinians suffered very much. I think as head of family and parents of children living with fear that they also deserve good life. I would like that they hoped good life for Palestinians at presentâ€, he said.

Mr. Lenk took stance on protest action in Nardaran and said that there were many citizens of various points of view in other places of Baku as well and they had rights to have various opinionsâ€, he said.

The ambassador spoke about impact of military operations on parliamentary elections in Israel in February and noted that election campaign was stopped.
â€œThere is not any opposition in Israel at present and everybody only wants people live safely in the south of the countryâ€, he added.