The media advisor to the Syrian presidency denies to Al Arabiya the existence of contacts with Hezbollah

Listen to the article. The audio text is automated, generated by an automated system

In an interview with Al Arabiya/Al Hadath on Friday, the Syrian presidential media advisor, Ahmed Muwafaq Zaidan, denied reports of contacts with Hezbollah, stressing that they were baseless.

Zidane said: “We previously paid the price for rapprochement with militias outside the Lebanese state.”

The Syrian presidential advisor confirmed that parties with an interest are publishing false reports about communication with Hezbollah.

Zidane explained that his country deals with the state, saying: “Our approach in Lebanon is to support the state only.”

Zidane stressed that "the era of militias is over and there is no place for them."

He said that negotiations with Lebanon "should be with the state, not a militia."

Reports on Thursday claimed that representatives of the Syrian government and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held direct talks in Turkey in an attempt to calm tensions between the two sides, the first known meeting of its kind between the two long-time adversaries.

After the news was published, the official English-language account of the Syrian government on the

On Wednesday, the Hezbollah group denied its involvement in the matter, and said that it has no presence at all on Syrian territory nor any involvement in any security or military activity there.