BEIRUT: Tripoli will not be declared an Islamic emirate, Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi said Wednesday, insisting that the northern port city remains safe.
“There will be no province or Islamic emirate in Tripoli, and any such assumptions are only to intimidate,” Rifi said in a statement. “Tripoli will remain the second Lebanese capital... [and] the city of science and creativity.”
Rifi, the former head of the Internal Security Forces, criticized rhetoric he said is being used to frighten the public.
“There will be no governmental or security collapse,” he said “and despite the consequences of the Syrian volcano that resulted in some limited, dispersed incidents, there is no need to frighten the people.”
Rifi expressed his confidence that Lebanon is able to “put out the fires caused by this volcano,” stressing that none of the local political factions benefit from the city's chaos.
However, the minister said the situation in the country cannot become “normal” as long as there is an “unofficial army,” referring to Hezbollah.
“We will not accept a mini-state inside the state,” he said, reiterating his call on Hezbollah to withdraw its forces from Syria.
“I do not consider Hezbollah’s dead as martyrs,” Rifi said in reference to the party’s fighters who have fallen in the Syrian war. “One is only a martyr when he dies in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy.”
“Only in that case would I bow before him and salute him.”
After Hezbollah withdraws from Syria, Rifi said, the Army and UNIFIL peacekeepers could be deployed to the eastern and northern borders, he proposed.
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