Suleiman Says Hizbullah, Salafists will be Eventually Disarmed
President Michel Suleiman on Thursday noted that Syria was not seeking to stir chaos in Lebanon, stressing that the weapons of non-state actors will be eventually removed, “whether they belong to Hizbullah or the Salafist forces.”
“Syria does not have the objective of stirring chaos in Lebanon as it is barely being able to tackle its own problems at the moment, and we have to prevent a spillover of the Syrian crisis into Lebanon through endorsing the stance of neutrality that was taken by the national dialogue commission,” Suleiman said during a meeting with Argentinean reporters in Buenos Aires.
The president has said that Syrian President Bashar Assad must contact him to clarify the charges against Syrian officials in the case of ex-Minister Michel Samaha.
Lebanon's Military Court has charged Samaha and Syrian security Chief Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk with forming a group to commit terrorist crimes in Lebanon.
Suleiman told the Argentinean reporters that the approach towards the Syrian crisis was based on “preventing Lebanon from becoming a launchpad for operations against Syria or for training and military bases linked to the Syrian conflict.”
Asked whether any Free Syrian Army fighters were operating in northern Lebanon, Suleiman denied “the presence of specific locations for the FSA in Lebanon,” noting that “violations are being committed by both the Free Army and the regime army on the overlapping border” between Lebanon and Syria.
Addressing the issue of the weapons of non-state actors, Suleiman said one “must not mix up Hizbullah's arms and the Resistance's arms.”
He noted that “the Resistance's arms are part of a defense strategy we're putting together at the dialogue sessions, and they are to be used only to defend Lebanon against any Israeli attack and to support the Lebanese army according to the decision of the political authority. While the weapons that are being used domestically must be prohibited and removed, whether they belong to Hizbullah, the Salafist forces or anyone else.”
“We are exerting efforts towards this objective but we have not achieved it yet. The issue of the proliferation of arms domestically was put on the dialogue table's agenda and the first phase will be putting a moratorium on the use of these arms ahead of removing them,” Suleiman added.
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