Jumblat: No Veto Power to Assad, Ahmadinejad

Druze leader Walid Jumblat announced that he will not let Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “rule Lebanon through the one-third blocking” share in the future government.

 

“I will not give Assad or Ahmadinejad a say in Lebanon (politics). They can have it only after we are buried,” Jumblat said in a live interview with ANB television late Wednesday.

The interview with Jumblat coincided with another aired simultaneously with Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

 

Jumblat said the majority March 14 alliance has already given a lot of concessions, stressing that he will not comply with the opposition”s demands.

 

He said that meeting the opposition”s terms was tantamount to “working for the interest” of the Syrian and the Iranian presidents, describing Ahmadinejad as “crazy” while Assad as a “kid.”

 

Jumblat urged Nasrallah to adopt the Taef Accord as well as what had been agreed upon previously at the dialogue table.

 

“But Nasrallah wants everything and says “all of you are under my guardianship,”” Jumblat said.

 

Jumblat said that the anti-government factions are eying the justice ministry in the future cabinet to obstruct the trial of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri”s assassins in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

 

This constitutes “a threat to the tribunal,” Jumblat said.

 

He suggested giving the majority 14 cabinet seats, the opposition 10 and the president 6 in the new government.

 

The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party described the assassination of Brig. Gen. Francois el-Hajj last month as “a message to all the Lebanese that they don”t have the right to choose their president.”