Talabani charges Hezbollah interference

BAGHDAD, May 30 (UPI) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in a Baghdad interview Friday, accused the leader of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah of meddling in Iraq's affairs.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah earlier called on Iraqis to employ what he called a "strategy of freedom" as he praised "Iraqi resistance to the American occupation," KUNA, the Kuwait News Agency, reported.

Talabani said Iraq had not interfered with Lebanese affairs and suggested Nasrallah do likewise with Iraq. He said true Shiite religious scholars who had conflicting views to Nasrallah lay in Iraq and not in their "apprentices" elsewhere.

In regard to the Iraqi-Iranian situation, Talabani said that there was "much exaggeration in the matter."