Ammon News - Iranian Foreign ​Minister Abbas Araqchi ​has rejected remarks by Lebanese President Joseph ​Aoun ‌that Lebanon ⁠was a bargaining ‌chip for Tehran.

Aoun said ⁠on Friday that Iran was using ​Lebanon as a "bargaining ‌chip in its negotiations with the ‌United States" and that ​Lebanese people were paying the price for Iran's ​interests.

"Had Lebanon been ​bargaining chip ​for Iran, we'd have ​a deal long ago," Araqchi posted on X. "Save Lebanon from ⁠your real foe, Mr. President."

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun delivered one of his sharpest rebukes of Hezbollah, Iran and the IRGC on Friday, telling Tehran, “It’s not your country, it’s our country.

“It’s not your job to interfere in our country,” Aoun said during an interview at the presidential palace.

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Aoun also accused Tehran of using Lebanon as a “bargaining chip” in its negotiations with the US, calling it “unacceptable.”

During his interview with CNN, Aoun called out Hezbollah and its secretary-general. “The Lebanese people are not your people,” he said, adding that Hezbollah must understand that there is no other way out of the war but to sit and talk “to save what is left” of Lebanon.

Aoun has repeatedly sought to distance Lebanon from regional conflicts and has said decisions concerning the country’s sovereignty and security must be made by the Lebanese state alone.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday urged Iran to stop treating his country, where Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah are at war, as a “bargaining chip” in its negotiations with Washington on the Middle East conflict.

“If I may address a word to Iran, it is this: have mercy on our south, stop treating it and its people as merely a bargaining chip to improve the terms of your negotiations,” Salam told a press conference for a UN aid appeal for Lebanon.