Salam Wants Cabinet Session to be Held before March 14 Rally
Prime Minister Tammam Salam is eager to hold a cabinet session on Friday before a rally organized by the March 14 alliance in the afternoon to avoid a further crisis on the policy statement.
According to As Safir, Salam had expressed fears that the rally, which will be held in BIEL on the anniversary of the Cedar Revolution, would complicate the row on the resistance clause of the policy statement.
“Who can give us guarantees that March 14 would not further hold onto its conditions after the rally,” he was quoted as saying.
Salam fears that the alliance's leaders would attack the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance in their speeches, and raise the political rhetoric and tension.
The March 8 camp wants to legitimize Hizbullah's arms in the resistance clause but March 14 is demanding that the resistance be put under the state's authority.
The row has led to the failure of a seven-member ministerial committee tasked with drafting the blueprint to complete its work.
The Constitution gives it until Monday or else the cabinet would be considered resigned and President Michel Suleiman would have to call for binding parliamentary consultations to name a new premier.
But Salam has threatened to resign to express his condemnation of the failure of the rival parties to strike a deal.
The Kuwaiti al-Qabas daily quoted Salam as saying that “the political parties had a historic responsibility” to resolve their dispute, warning of “accumulated dangers in the country.”
The cabinet held a marathon session on Thursday and will meet again on Friday. But it was not clear when the session will take place.
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