Berri, Jumblat Await March 14 Rally to Make Policy Statement Proposal
Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat have decided to wait for a rally organized by the March 14 alliance on Friday to make their proposal to resolve the policy statement deadlock, media reports said.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam called for a cabinet meeting on Thursday to take an “appropriate decision” on the dispute between March 14 and the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp over the resistance clause after a seven-member committee failed in its tenth meeting to resolve the row.
The government is not likely to resort to voting during the session that will be chaired by President Michel Suleiman at the Baabda Palace despite the looming deadline for the cabinet to approve the political blueprint and refer it to parliament for a vote of confidence.
Berri has warned that when the deadline expires next Monday, Suleiman will have to call for binding parliamentary consultations to name a new prime minister.
There were intense contacts between him and Jumblat on Tuesday to discuss the details of their proposal, but local dailies said that both officials decided to await the March 14 rally and hear the speeches of the alliance's officials.
The newspapers expected them to adopt a high rhetoric against March 8, which is holding onto a statement made by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil at the meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers held in Cairo on Sunday.
The closing statement of the meeting called for "the right of Lebanon and the Lebanese to liberate and recover the Shebaa Farms, the Kfarshouba Hills and the Lebanese part of the Ghajar village, and to resist any Israeli aggression or occupation through the legitimate means."
Bassil proposed it after coordinating with President Michel Suleiman and Salam.
But March 14 wants the adoption of a clause under which the resistance is put under the authority of the state.
Several alliance officials have stressed “the right of Lebanon as a state and not the right of the Lebanese to resist Israel.”
Al-Liwaa newspaper said the rally, which will be held on the ninth anniversary of the Cedar Revolution, will include speeches by Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, Phalange leader Amin Gemayel, al-Mustaqbal movement's head ex-PM Saad Hariri or al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc chief MP Fouad Saniora, and March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid.
Geagea will not attend the rally. He will address the March 14 supporters via video link, al-Liwaa said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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