Iran denies supplying weapons to Hizbullah

NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran has denied flying plane loads of weapons to Hizbullah guerrillas in south Lebanon.

The Iranian government said the only support it gives Hizbullah is moral.

"We reject the accusations by the Zionist regime that we are shipping weapons to Lebanon," the official IRNA news agency quoted Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi as saying Wednesday. "The support given by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Lebanese resistance is purely spiritual.... "The great victory of the fighters of the Lebanese resistance, and the humiliating withdrawal of the Zionist regime from Lebanese territory, should be a lesson for that regime."

The U.S. and Israel suspect that Iranian cargo planes, carrying weapons for Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon, unload their cargo in Damascus. The Iranian planes fly through Turkish airspace en route to Syria.

Israel and the United States have urged Turkey to prevent Iran flying plane loads of weapons to Hizbullah.

Turkey, in compliance with the U.S. and Israeli request has demanded that Iran disclose to Turkish officials the contents of every cargo being transported by Iranian planes using Turkish airspace.