Hariri Says Working on Solution to Aoun-Berri Row

Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced overnight that he is exerting efforts aimed at resolving the growing spat between President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri.

“Some want to blow this issue out of proportion, but it is related to one point that I’m working on and all parties will reach a solution,” said Hariri in response to a reporter’s question on the Aoun-Berri crisis.

“This issue needs patience and a cordial solution. Things can be resolved and nothing is impossible. We went through much more difficult ordeals and we will not be hindered by a decree,” the premier added.

Told that Berri has said that “the solution is the finance minister’s signature” on the so-called officers seniority decree, Hariri said: “I will not go into details and God willing things will be resolved.”

The Aoun-Berri spat broke out after the president and the premier signed a decree granting one-year seniority to a number of officers. Berri and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil have insisted that the decree should have also carried the finance minister's signature.

Aoun and his aides have argued that the decree did not require Khalil's signature because it did not entail any “financial burden,” a point Berri and officials close to him have argued against.

Ain el-Tineh sources have meanwhile warned that the decree would tip sectarian balance in favor of Christians in the army's highest echelons.

The officers in question were undergoing their first year of officer training at the Military Academy when Syrian forces ousted Aoun’s military government from Baabda in 1990. They were suspended by the pro-Damascus authorities until 1993 before they resumed their officer training course as second-year cadets.