March 14 Urges Suleiman to Call for Hizbullah Withdrawal from Syria

A delegation from the March 14 alliance on Tuesday handed President Michel Suleiman a memo that calls for Hizbullah's “immediate” pullout from Syria and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border with the war-torn country.

The delegation to Baabda Palace was headed by al-Mustaqbal bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora, who later held a press conference at the parliament along with several March 14 MPs to reveal the details of the memo, its second to Suleiman in nine months.

Around 50 signatories called for “Hizbullah's full and immediate withdrawal from Syria pending a solution to the problem of its arms.”

Hizbullah fighters are playing a prominent role in supporting regime troops against the rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. Earlier this month, Syrian soldiers and Hizbullah members recaptured Qusayr following a more than two-week assault on the strategic town on the border with Lebanon.

The signatories claimed that the party's role in the fighting is a clear violation of the Constitution, the sovereignty of the Lebanese state and international resolutions.

They asked Suleiman to deploy the Lebanese army on the northern and eastern border with Syria with the assistance of U.N. peacekeepers and to control the crossings with the neighboring country.

The memo hinted that the March 14 alliance will not accept the participation of Hizbullah in the new cabinet that Premier-designate Tammam Salam is seeking to form.

The coalition wants a neutral government that adopts the Baabda Declaration as its policy statement, said Saniora.

The head of al-Mustaqbal bloc accused Hizbullah of using its “illegitimate arms” under the orders of its main backer Iran to “create a power stronger than the state and to impose its hegemony” on Lebanon's “sovereign decisions.”

He reiterated that Hizbullah “contributed to the proliferation of arms and gunmen in different Lebanese regions” and contravened the decisions reached at the National Dialogue since 2006 and the Baabda Declaration in 2012.

Saniora warned of a “disastrous situation,” saying Lebanese territories have become training grounds for gunmen being sent abroad under Iranian orders to fight alongside Syrian regime troops.

“Hizbullah is serving the Syrian and Iranian regimes at the expense of the Lebanese … This pushes the country to a war among the Lebanese,” said the memo.

It also accused the Assad regime of expanding its battle to Lebanon and committing crimes mainly in the northern city of Tripoli and the northeastern town of Arsal where occasionally it carries out air raids.