Is the UK going to talk with Hezbollah....

This is an alarming report, if true. Of course, the BBC would love the UK to talk with Hezbollah....

Britain is considering dropping a ban on contact with the political wing of the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, a British minister has confirmed.

The government has had no official talks with Hezbollah since 2005.

But the UK's ambassador in Beirut has had contact with at least one Hezbollah politician since the group joined the country's unity government last June.

British ministers say there are no similar plans to open a dialogue with the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.

Only last year, the government put Hezbollah's military wing on a list of proscribed organisations over its alleged training of insurgents in Iraq.

But speaking to members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell confirmed that the government is now looking for ways to establish contact with the organisation's political wing.

You can't separate the political wing from the terrorist wing...