Jumblat Rejects Raad Claims that Hizbullah in Liberation Stage, Calls on State Role
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat criticized Hizbullah for announcing that it is premature for political leaders to discuss the national defense strategy because the party is still in the liberation stage.
“I’ve heard a statement from MP Mohammed Raad that there would be no surrender of arms before liberation. I object to that because the Lebanese state is the side that decides the liberation of Shebaa farms and Kfarshouba hills through the means that it sees fit,” Jumblat told a delegation of Arab journalists.
“We had agreed during (national) dialogue sessions in 2006 to verify the ownership of the farms through demarcation … which should have been done with the Syrian state,” he said.
Not a single party can make a unilateral decision to liberate occupied land and then join the state, Jumblat, who is a centrist, said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
A proposal made by President Michel Suleiman during the last national dialogue session at Baabda palace states clearly how the authorities could take advantage of Hizbullah’s arsenal to defend Lebanon “and not the Islamic Republic or any other person,” the PSP chief stressed.
Raad’s remarks on Monday also drew harsh criticism from the March 14 opposition alliance.
On the crisis in Syria, Jumblat said a bombing in Damascus that killed three of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s aides does not mean Assad would surrender or leave the country.
“He will continue to confront” the rebels that have been fighting him since March last year. “That’s why speeding up the arming and funding of the Free Syrian Army would relieve the country from a lot of destruction.”
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