Miqati, Berri Advocate Distancing Lebanon from Syria Crisis after Tall Kalakh Incident
Prime Minister Najib Miqati said Monday it is wrong to bet on the outcome of the Syrian crisis to make political gains after several Lebanese men were killed as they were trying to infiltrate Syria.
“The essence of the government's policy of staying at a distance (from the Syrian crisis) was aimed at keeping Lebanon away from regional conflicts and safeguarding it against external threats,” Miqati told As Safir newspaper.
“It is wrong to continue to bet on the Syrian situation to make internal political gains,” he said.
Speaker Nabih Berri agreed with him, saying any option other than steering Lebanon clear of the Syrian crisis would be “very costly.”
“Things on the ground proved that,” he said.
The number of Lebanese men killed in the Syrian town of Tall Kalakh is so far unclear.
An Nahar newspaper said Monday that the group, which tried to infiltrate Syria to fight alongside rebels, included 17 Lebanese and four Syrians.
Fifteen of them were killed and buried in a mass grave, it said.
Syrian TV aired on Sunday footage of bodies it claimed to be of the men who died in the ambush set by Syrian regime forces.
The Lebanese army continued on Monday to take extraordinary measures in the northern city of Tripoli over fears of clashes between the residents of Bab al-Tabbaneh that support the Syrian revolution and the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen that backs Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The strong measures came following rumors that Bab al-Tabbaneh families were planning to kidnap Alawites from Jabal Mohsen to trade them with the bodies of the slain men in Syria.
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