Article content

Canadian diplomats mounted a behind-the-scenes push to convince European countries to outlaw the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, a government official said in an interview Wednesday.

For the past year, the blacklisting of Hezbollah on the continent has been a Department of Foreign Affairs priority — one that apparently paid off this week when the European Union agreed to ban the military wing of the so-called Party of God.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Canada pushed EU to add Hezbollah to list of banned terrorist organizations, official says Back to video

The diplomatic effort began last July, after a bus carrying Israeli tourists was bombed in Bulgaria by suspected Hezbollah operatives. Following a discussion with Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird instructed his officials to persuade the EU to proscribe Hezbollah.

We went out to try and achieve that objective

“This is a clear priority that was set out by the minister. We went out to try and achieve that objective,” said the official, who was closely involved in the diplomacy and spoke to the National Post on the condition he would not be identified.