Jumblat for Absorbing Hizbullah Fighters in the Army, Creating Senate

 

Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Jumblat stressed that nominating Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman for president is a political settlement based on the agenda of setting up normal diplomatic relations with Syria and absorbing Hizbullah fighters into the army.

 

Jumblat, in an editorial to be published on Tuesday by the PSP mouthpiece al-Anbaa, said the settlement stems from Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir guidelines that called for consensus.

 

“That means consensus on principles of national dialogue”, that is demarcating the borders with Syria, setting up diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria, handling the issue of Palestinian weapons outside the camps and, then, within the camps and the international tribunal,” Jumblat wrote.

 

The nation”s independence, he said, “can be achieved with the resistance and with its acceptance to be gradually absorbed by the army to confront Israel, which would highly add to the army”s capabilities.

 

“This absorption, if achieved, would gradually lead to the acceptance by all the political parties of the positive neutralization of Lebanon” by which Lebanese would cease being an arena for settling disputes of others, according to Jumblat.

 

He concluded by calling for the full implementation of the constitution, which includes the full implementation of the Taif accord, including the creation of a senate .That should be seriously dealt with after the forthcoming presidential election because it “preserves the national balance of powers.”