March 14 Acknowledges Differences in Views with Jumblat, Yet Would Keep his Place
March 14 Forces downplayed the significance of remarks by Druze leader Walid Jumblat on terminating his alliance with the ruling coalition.
"There is significant difference in views with MP Walid Jumblat," March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soaid said..
"We refuse, however, to engage in a dispute with him," Soaid said in remarks to several newspapers, adding that Jumblat”s position will "continue to be preserved within March 14."
"What he said was considered in the context of self-criticism within a narrow political party," he stressed.
Soaid said intensive overnight contacts with Progressive Socialist Party officials confirmed that Jumblat was still part of March 14 forces.
He pointed that difference in views with Jumblat revolved around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon where the Druze leader believes that "civil peace is more important than justice."
Soaid said he believed this was done under pressure from Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
In May, Germany”s Der Spiegel news magazine said that the U.N. commission probing the Hariri murder had new evidence that Hizbullah Special Forces "planned and executed" the Beirut car bombing on February 14, 2005.
Nasrallah said at the time that the report was clearly aimed at sowing discord between the country”s Sunnis and the Shiites.
Jumblat had since been warning against a Sunni-Shiite rift.
The Druze leader on Sunday announced that his alliance with March 14 forces had been "out of necessity and must not continue."
Jumblat stressed the need to reconsider formation a new coalition on a national level "to get rid of bias and prevent sliding into the (political) right."
He was addressing the opening of the PSP”s extraordinary general assembly at Beirut”s Beau Rivage hotel.
The PSP leader said he believed that March 14″s battle "did not enjoy political context."
"Our battle was built on the rejection of the other from a sectarian, tribal and political perspective," he said, calling for a return to "our principles and to the leftist" roots.
Jumblat described his visit to Washington as a "black point." But said his only concern was the international tribunal which was set to try suspected in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri.