Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil started a tour on Saturday, September 17 in Canada and the United States. Minister Bassil’s first stopped in Canada where he met with Lebanese expatriates and FPM supporters.
At a luncheon attended by the FPM’s partisans in Montreal, Canada, foreign minister Gebran Bassil called on the Lebanese Diaspora to register and vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, “You are invited to determine the destiny of your country.”
Bassil announced that “the Lebanese expatriates will have, for the first time, deputies representing them.”
Minister Bassil left Canada and arrived in Atlanta/ Georgia in the United States of America, where he started his tour by attending the Holy Mass at St. Joseph’s Lebanese Church; followed by a gathering with the Lebanese Diaspora to which he announced the exciting news of the elections and urged the expatriates to register in order to participate for the first time in the upcoming cabinet elections.
He addressed the crowd in English, after realizing that many of them do not know their Arabic language. Bassil stressed in his speech about the importance of having the Lebanese nationality and identity; and this is an excerpt of Minister Bassil’s speech:
– “Preserving your identity is a matter of entity and existence, for without it there would be no meaning to Lebanon.”
-“This existence will remain in danger as long we have displaced and refugees on our lands, and as long as the nationalization decree still exists despite its annulment.”
– “We are concerned to restore the Lebanese citizenship to every Lebanese who lost it,” Bassil went on.
Bassi tackled the latest events that happened in Lebanon and the defeat of ISIL in “Fajer-el-Jouroud” by the Lebanese army and concluded by saying “In spite of all the difficulties that we went through, we defeated terrorism.”
– “Our army succeeded, for the first time, to raise the Lebanese flag on the eastern border after its liberation,” he concluded.
Minister Bassil will hold a series of official meetings while in the states, and will inaugurate the second Lebanese Diaspora Energy conference, (LDE), on the 23rd and 24th of September for North America at the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas.
Hala Hayek Najjar
