Beirut - The Lebanese army denied Wednesday Israeli reports that arms are still being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria and stressed that the country's borders are under tight control.

'The land and sea borders are tightly controlled and there are no arms entering Lebanon,' the army command said in a statement.

'Therefore, the army command considers that the declaration of the Israeli defence minister is an interference in Lebanese internal affairs that aims at destabilizing the country,' it added.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Monday that Israel would continue surveillance flights over Lebanon as long as arms smuggling into the country for the militant Hezbollah movement goes on in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended 33 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army statement said that Peretz's remarks 'are just a pretext to continue violating the Lebanese airspace and thus failing to abide by Resolution 1701.'

Israel charges that Iran and Syria have been supplying arms to Hezbollah for years.

Since the end of the war on August 14, some 8,000 Lebanese soldiers have been deployed at the Lebanese-Syrian border to monitor the area.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur