Jumblat: Contacts with Hariri Completely Severed, Impossible Demands Hindering Cabinet Formation

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stated that contacts between him and caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri are completely severed, saying that he will not agree to an individual reconciliation with him.

He said in an interview in Al-Afkar magazine that will be published on Friday: “I support Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati and if Hariri believes that Miqati betrayed him, then he should explain his statement or retract it. It is best if he reconsiders his position.”

Addressing the government formation process, he said: “Some U.S. pressure is delaying the formation, but some Lebanese’ impossible demands also stand as obstacles.”

He denied however that the delay was connected to the various developments in the Arab world.

Regarding the anti-sectarian youth demonstrations recently held in Lebanon, Jumblat said: “It’s time that a new political camp arrive in Lebanon because the Lebanese have grown tired of the severe vertical divide between the March 8 and 14 camps.”

Turning to the issue of Hizbullah’s arms and the dispute over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the MP said: “I hope Hariri is keen on national unity and inter-Islamic ties, because several leaks targeting national unity have emerged from the tribunal.”

“The issue of the arms was never resolved even when I was a military official in the 1970s,” he remarked.

“Disputes cannot be resolved through slogans, but through dialogue and our proposal of gradually incorporating the Resistance’s arms in the Lebanese army,” he noted.

“We must emphasize dialogue because during the most difficult moments of the civil war, we resorted to dialogue, but today dialogue has stopped,” Jumblat said.

“Incitement against the weapons will not lead to any results, but the incitement should not continue because ultimately all disputes are settled through dialogue,” he stressed.