Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said today that the ministerial statement did not give Hezbollah the right to retake the Shebaa Farms and defend Lebanon as some have claimed.
“Such talk is misleading and contradicts the ministerial statement,” Geagea told reporters at Maarab.
Geagea noted that the ministerial statement’s preamble stressed the exclusiveness of the authority of the state and said that this has become the guiding principle of the statement.
Geagea noted that section twenty four (24), with reference to the right of the Lebanese people, army and Resistance to liberate or regain land, could have also included Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) and its political parties such as the Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces.
“The right to liberate and defend Lebanon was not given to a single faction,” he declared.
Geagea also said that this section does not give the Lebanese army alone the right to decide the defensive strategy or to choose the timing of retaliating against Israel, or to adopt a specific strategy without consulting the Government.
He commented on MP Michel Aoun’s statement that included the expression “under the wing of the state” on the subject of the right to resist Israel, that could be interpreted as allowing the state to be responsible for any retaliation by the Resistance against Israel. Geagea said that during the July 2006 war, the ministerial statement included no such expression, but the Israelis still attacked the state.
When asked about Aoun’s denial of the possibility of implementing the project of the Guardianship of the Jurist in Lebanon, Geagea said that the Guardianship is not only present in Iran and the Middle East but in the whole world.
“This Guardianship “echoes” in Lebanon and is represented by Hezbollah and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” Geagea declared.