Free Patriotic Movement leader Minister of Foreign Affairs Gebran Bassil said on Tuesday that the party will not “be dragged into a side debate.”
Bassil’s comments were made following the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting in Rabieh whereby he noted that the Lebanese constitution stipulates that “there shall be no constitutional legitimacy for any authority which contradicts the pact of communal coexistence.”
“Wee’re going through a political system crisis and we’ll rectify this abnormal situation through all political and popular means,” he concluded by saying.
Yesterday, the national dialogue sessions were suspended as Speaker Nabih Berri did not set a date for the next meeting, following a dispute that erupted during the session between Bassil and head of the Marada Movement MP Sleiman Frangieh.
Following the dialogue session, Minister Bassil said that once the National Pact is violated, the national conviction in coexistence becomes unstable, stressing that they will not allow the injustice practiced against the Christians during the 1990s to be repeated.
For his part, former Minister Ghazi al-Aridi, who was representing head of the Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblatt at the dialogue, expressed his objection to the way the dialogue session ended and to the suspension of future sessions.
He also stressed the need to exert maximum efforts in order to resolve the government issues.
In turn, MP Frangieh declared that the upcoming stage will witness a major debate, noting that there are attempts aiming at forcing him to back down, “but this will not happen,” he said.
During the session, Speaker Nabih Berri had voiced hopes that the deputies would grant of their allocations for the month of October to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
