Jumblat: Thanks but No thanks Mr. Assad
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader MP Walid Jumblatt reaffirmed French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s statements on Lebanon in a speech the president made in Lebanon on Saturday, as well as the inaugural speech of Lebanese newly elected President Michel Sleiman. Both presidents, Jumblatt said, confirmed the role of the state in embracing all parties and the importance of constitutional institutions in resolving political conflict.
In his weekly column for the PSP-owned Al-Anbaa newspaper, Jumblatt pointed out that the fourth item of the Doha agreement clearly prohibited the use of arms of violence in settling political differences under any circumstances. Abstaining from the use of arms was the only guarantee of national partnership and Lebanese coexistence, he added.
Jumblatt emphasized that the Lebanese state was the sole authority on Lebanese territories and the only means of establishing a democratic system.
“We hold on to all items of the Doha agreement in order to reach a new political reality under the title of legitimacy and state institutions, like all countries around the world where the decision of war and peace is in the hands of the state, which has the full capacity to protect its territories and borders and defend them,” the PSP leader said.
Jumblatt said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seemed to be looking for an escape from the International Tribunal, a UN-commissioned investigation into the assassination of five-time Premier Rafik Hariri. Jumblatt said Assad was willing to sacrifice the four officers implicated in the 2005 car bombing, which only indirectly confirmed the Syrian president’s implication in the assassination and other assassinations in Lebanon.
Jumblatt said it was “comic” that Assad would assert that his security services in Lebanon were solely responsible for Syrians. “Can any sane person believe these words?” he questioned. Jumblatt added that the Syrian security’s presence in Lebanon intervened in every aspect of Lebanese, from “the selection of a president to the smallest usher in this or that ministry.”
Jumblatt thanked Assad for “[his] ‘brotherly’ advice that the Lebanese should begin negotiations with Israel, which is a trap that Lebanon will not fall into.” The PSP emphasized that Lebanon would uphold the Palestinian right to return and peace. “After the full return of the Golan Heights, and perhaps after seeing Assad on a friendly visit to … Jerusalem, the suggestion then becomes viable.”