BEIRUT: The 3-month-old dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah will endure despite a new charge that the Shiite party had plotted to kill former premier Rafik Hariri, according to Speaker Nabih Berri and a senior March 8 source.
In his second day of testimony before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the Netherlands Tuesday, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Hariri had confided to him sometime at the end of 2003 or early in 2004 that he had uncovered multiple assassination attempts against him orchestrated by Hezbollah.
“Suddenly, he turned toward me and said, ‘You know Fouad, we have by now discovered many assassination attempts by Hezbollah targeting me.’ This was extremely sudden and astonishing for me, and that was followed by a heavy silence,” said Siniora, Hariri’s longtime confidante.
Regarding Siniora’s remarks, Berri told a local website: “There will be no impact on the dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement. The dialogue will endure.”
A senior March 8 source refused to comment on Siniora’s remarks, saying Hezbollah upheld the dialogue with the Future Movement.
“In the last dialogue session between Hezbollah and the Future Movement, the two parties agreed that their strategic decision was to engage in dialogue and that it would not be affected by provocative speeches made in the media,” the source told The Daily Star.
“What we heard today [from Siniora] has no impact on dialogue at all, but it actually harms the Future Movement. They are showing two faces,” the source said, referring to fiery speeches made by some Future officials against Hezbollah despite the ongoing talks, “whereas Hezbollah is abiding by the requirements and morals of dialogue.”
Siniora’s anti-Hezbollah claim came after the dialogue with the Future Movement was jolted earlier this month by renewed tensions between the two rival influential parties, whose strained ties had in the past put the country on edge.
During their eighth round of talks last week, the two sides agreed to defuse tensions and restore the momentum which characterized their earlier meetings, stressing that their dialogue was “a main pillar” for the country’s stability. The tension began after Siniora, the head of the parliamentary Future bloc, accused Hezbollah of destabilizing Lebanon with its military intervention in Syria. Hezbollah MPs hit back at Siniora, questioning the benefits of the dialogue while Future officials kept up their anti-Hezbollah rhetoric.
The Future bloc defended Siniora’s testimony, saying the March 8 smear campaign against him was designed to dissuade him from revealing information to the STL.
Siniora’s testimony “explains the motives and dimensions of the political and media campaign launched by March 8 parties against [former] Premier Siniora in the days preceding the testimony with the aim of blocking the road to information he might disclose,” the bloc said in a statement after its weekly meeting. In his testimony, Siniora highlighted the strained relations between Hariri and Syria.
The Future bloc renewed its call on the rival political factions to reach an agreement on the election of a new president “because the continued [presidential] vacancy will aggravate problems and disasters from which Lebanon is suffering.”
Meanwhile, Parliament’s Secretariat failed during a meeting chaired by Berri to agree on an agenda for a legislative session on urgent draft laws.
MP Marwan Hamade, a member of Parliament’s Secretariat, said Berri distributed a draft agenda for the legislative session during the meeting held at the speaker’s residence in Ain al-Tineh.
The Secretariat’s members will check on the proposed agenda with their respective blocs and other blocs not represented in the Secretariat after which the speaker will call for another session to take a final decision, Hamadeh told reporters after the meeting.
Tuesday’s meeting comes amid opposition expressed by some Christian parties to legislative activity during the 10-month-old presidential vacuum. It also comes as March 8 and March 14 MPs are split over the interpretation of what has been known among lawmakers as “necessary legislation” in the absence of a president.
Separately, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil met with Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea late Monday, amid attempts to arrange a meeting between MP Michel Aoun and Geagea seen as crucial to ending the presidential impasse. Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, discussed many issues with the LF chief, including granting Lebanese expatriates dual citizenship, a statement from Geagea’s office said.
No comments:
Post a Comment