Jumblat Calls for Keeping STL Out of Political Debate, Slams Opposition's Rhetoric

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has called for keeping the thorny issue of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon out of the political debate in the country.

“I add my voice to that of the Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, who called for keeping the issue of the STL out of the domestic political debate, in a manner that allows the consolidation of political stability, the reactivation of the work of state institutions and the addressing of people’s social demands and living conditions, without disavowing the call for justice, which is being mostly harmed by the continuous debate over it,” Jumblat said.

In his weekly column in his party’s mouthpiece Al-Anbaa newspaper, Jumblat also described the mufti’s rhetoric as a “rational and calm rhetoric, which is the needed rhetoric to deal with the sensitivity of the current period, and which is contradictory to the opposition camp’s tense rhetoric.”

The Druze leader warned that the opposition’s rhetoric would “reproduce” sectarian tensions in the deeply divided nation, noting that “taking the country to a dead-end does not serve stability or justice.”

On Sunday Qabbani said that the STL should not be part of the political bickering in the country.

“This court is an institution that has international legitimacy from a Security Council resolution that established it. That’s why it should be left out of the political rhetoric,” the mufti said in a statement.

“Using the tribunal as a headline for bickering among politicians would harm the memory of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and all the other martyrs who have shed their bloods to achieve a sovereign, free and independent state,” Qabbani added.