BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra criticized Prime Minister Najib Mikati Friday for considering Hezbollah’s stance toward the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as positive, describing it as an attempt to improve the image of the government.

“The worst position Mikati has taken is when he said he considered Hezbollah's request for a vote on the tribunal as positive,” Zahra told a local radio station, referring to Mikati’s remarks in his Thursday’s interview with BBC.

During the interview, Mikati said that Hezbollah had not appeared to completely reject the funding when its chief, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, said last week that lawmakers should seek consensus on the matter or put it to vote in the government.

“I did not conclude that [Nasrallah] said ‘no’ to the tribunal,” Mikati said, adding that Nasrallah had left the issue to the constitutional institutions to play their part

Lebanon has not yet paid its $32 million share of the U.N.-backed court’s budget for 2011. Mikati and President Michel Sleiman have repeatedly affirmed the country’s commitment to international obligations, in particular the tribunal, which in late June indicted four Hezbollah members of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former statesman Rafik Hariri.

“Mikati's position that Hezbollah did not say no to funding the court is an attempt to improve the image [of the government]... Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah considers that the tribunal is an Israeli tool and rejected the funding,” Zahra said.

Hezbollah has vocally rejected the tribunal as a U.S.-Israeli tool aimed at targeting the resistance and sowing sectarian strife in Lebanon. Nasrallah has, on several occasions, questioned the credibility of the court’s prosecutors and judges.