BEIRUT: Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has deplored the indifference of the international community towards the plight of Christians in the Middle East, warning that their uprooting would turn the region into a hotbed of terrorism.
Bassil also underscored Lebanon’s vital importance as an example of multi-sectarian and multi-cultural coexistence in the region, where Christians have an effective presence and equal role in running the affairs of the country as their Muslim counterparts.
In an address to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council Tuesday, the first ever by a Lebanese foreign minister, Bassil said: “Christians of the Orient are in fact the best guarantor, if not the sole one, to prevent the transformation of the region into a source of global terrorism.”
Bassil stressed that Christians have a long history of coexistence and peaceful interaction with Muslims and are eagerly attached to their roots.
“We came from there (Orient) and there we will stay,” Bassil said.
Listing attacks carried out by Islamist militants in which scores of Christians were killed or displaced in Iraq and Syria in the past few years, Bassil complained that Christians feel today that the international community has let them down, sticking to mere slogans demanding their protection.
“We (Christians) simply cannot believe that an alliance of 60 states is incapable of preventing (the atrocities),” Bassil said.
He said Lebanon, which has always been a sanctuary of freedoms in the region, is now leading the war against terrorist organizations committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“ISIS is much more than a threat. It is a terrorist organization aiming in the long-run to redraw the political map in the Middle East,” Bassil warned, urging the international community to launch an overall counter-offensive to crack down on terrorism.
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