Gemayel Urges Talks on Arms, Economy, Elections, Govt.

Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel on Tuesday announced that he will boycott the Baabda national meeting, urging dialogue over the country’s “real problems.”

“We call on President Michel Aoun to put the essential issues on the table. We are advocates of dialogue and peace and we want the country to be civilized,” Gemayel said at a press conference.

But “we cannot but put the real problems on the table instead of silencing or drugging the people or trying to make them forget their bitter situation,” he added.

“We don’t want a dialogue that calls on people to remain silent and we are ready to attend a dialogue over the topics that are the reasons behind the problem, not a dialogue for ‘dying silently,’” Gemayel went on to say.

He said dialogue should be over key topics such as holding new parliamentary elections, forming an independent government, sovereignty and the control of non-state weapons.

Gemayel also said that dialogue should tackle the issue of devising an economic rescue plan that “addresses the people’s problems, unlike the one that is witnessing a conflict among the ruling parties.”

Commenting on Aoun’s remarks that the Baabda meeting aims to “immunize civil peace” in the wake of the latest incidents in Beirut and Tripoli, Gemayel said those incidents “were fabricated by the existing regime in order to scare people and make them return to bigotry.”

“To us, the solution for protecting stability lies in implementing the law and arresting security violators, not in calling for dialogue,” Gemayel pointed out.