Beirut – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Wednesday in Washington that he does not agree with the policies of Hezbollah group, stressing that his mission as premier is to “preserve the stability of Lebanon”.

“My job as Prime Minister of Lebanon is to shield Lebanon from any instability in Lebanon. If you look at our region today, whether in Syria, Iraq or all the countries around us there is instability and this is due to not having a consensus within the country to safeguard it. For me, stability is the most essential part of my role in Lebanon,” Hariri said during a lecture he gave at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“We agreed with all political parties that we would always have our political differences, us and Hezbollah. They will never agree with my policy and I will never agree with their policies, what they do in Syria, my opposition to the regime, these are totally different positions,” Hariri noted.

“We differ with them,” he continued. “We would have liked to see the Army doing what they are doing in Arsal. And we would not like to see them in Syria,” he said.

Describing Lebanon as a model for coexistence, the prime minister said: “In a region fraught with religious and sectarian violence, in a world where coexistence between Islam and Christianity is increasingly portrayed as impossible, Lebanon offers a model; a model of coexistence, of dialogue and of political solution.”

He added that the country, with a population of 4 million, has nearly 1,5 million Syrian displaced, added to about half a million Palestinian refugees on its territory.

Underlining the role of Lebanon as an asset to the region and to the world, Hariri said: “This asset faced and still faces many threats. Some of which we as Lebanese are dealing with on our own, and some for which the contribution of the International community is a must.”