Salam Regrets Sectarian Dispute on State Security, Urges Christians to Elect President
Prime Minister Tammam Salam has expressed regret that the controversy on the State Security agency has turned into a sectarian dispute among cabinet ministers, urging Christian parties to push for the election of a new president.
Salam said in remarks published in several dailies on Monday that the article on State Security is on the agenda of a cabinet session that will be held Tuesday.
“I will hear all the opinions on the article and will cooperate with what serves this agency,” he said.
“Just tell me … what has confessionalism got to do with an organizational-administrative issue inside an official security agency?” the PM asked.
“We will be fair with the State Security Department if we find out that it has been treated unjustly. If we discover flaws in its performance, then we fill fix them,” he said.
Last week, the cabinet failed to address various pending affairs with the contentious issue of the general-directorate of State Security taking up the majority of discussions.
Following nearly four hours of talks on the issue, no agreement was reached after Christian ministers insisted on resolving the controversy on State Security and then move on to discuss other matters such as the security at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport.
The ministers have been claiming that the leadership of the agency has been deliberately sidelined.
The general-directorate of state security had sent a bill to the cabinet on March 20, 2014 asking for the creation of a six-member leadership authority under which the director-general, Maj. Gen. George Qaraa, a Catholic, would have the casting vote.
But the former secretary general of the cabinet, Suhail Bouji, paralyzed the plan by saying that the approval of the bill requires a draft-law to be adopted by the parliament unlike a decision made by the Shura Council, the report said.
Media reports have quoted a ministerial source as saying that Bouji’s move likely came as a result of his friendship with the deputy director-general, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Tufaili.
But Salam stressed in his remarks to the newspapers that “the officials in charge of the agency are civil servants and are not the employees of a certain sect.”
“The parties trying to shove confessionalism into the issue are weakening and not strengthening the state,” he said.
The premier added that the Christian parties should focus instead on the election of a head of state.
Baabda Palace has been vacant since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014.
The vacuum has caused paralysis at state institutions, mainly the parliament.
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