Hizbullah Reportedly to Seek End to Aoun-Berri Row in Early January
Hizbullah will intervene after the holidays in a bid to put an end to the growing spat between its key allies President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri, media reports said.
Al-Liwaa daily reported Friday that Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will lead the efforts through his political aide Hussein al-Khalil and the party's Liaison and Coordination officer Wafiq Safa.
“The party will begin its endeavor in early 2018 after the holidays,” the newspaper quoted “credible sources” as saying.
The sources said Hizbullah will “reiterate its principled stance that supports Speaker Berri's viewpoint” on the controversial decree that has sparked the row with Aoun.
“The party will try to convince President Aoun of its stance and of the need to return the decree to the finance minister to sign it before it goes into effect, or else it will propose another compromise solution whose details are still unclear,” the sources added.
The Aoun-Berri spat broke out after the president and Premier Saad Hariri signed a decree granting one-year seniority to a number of officers. Berri and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil have insisted that the decree should have also carried the finance minister's signature.
Aoun and his aides have argued that the decree did not require Khalil's signature because it did not entail any “financial burden,” a point Berri and officials close to him have argued against.
Ain el-Tineh sources have meanwhile warned that the decree would tip sectarian balance in favor of Christians in the army's highest echelons.
The officers in question were undergoing their first year of officer training at the Military Academy when Syrian forces ousted Aoun’s military government from Baabda in 1990. They were suspended by the pro-Damascus authorities until 1993 before they resumed their officer training course as second-year cadets.
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