Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said on Sunday that discussions after the end of the war on Gaza and the war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon must “review everything, except for Lebanon’s borders and its unity.”
Speaking on a commemoration of Lebanese Forces martyrs, he slammed Hezbollah and the Resistance Axis of which it is a part of for “dragging Lebanon in an open futile war.”
The war has been imposed on the Lebanese people and it must stop, he demanded.
He also accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of “exploiting the Palestinian cause to strengthen its interests in Lebanon and the region”.
“The Lebanese people don’t want a war and the government has had no say in it,” he went on to say.
Geagea called on Hezbollah to show some “courage and end the war. This demands a commitment to United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, the deployment of the Lebanese army in the South and limiting the decision to go to war to the state alone.”
“However, if the party insists on pursuing the war, then it alone must suffer the consequences before God, the nation, people and history,” he declared.
Furthermore, he urged the Lebanese government to call on Hezbollah to stop the war.
Turning to the vacuum in the presidency in Lebanon, Geagea criticized parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, saying: “He must act according to his constitutional role, not his political one as an ally to a party [Hezbollah] that has ambitions beyond the presidency and Lebanon.”
He added that the “the road to the presidential palace in Baabda does not pass through Haret Hreik,” an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs - a Hezbollah stronghold.
The road to the presidency also doesn’t pass through Ain al-Tineh - Berri’s residence – and does not follow its conditions. Rather, the presidency must pass through parliament and through the ballot box, stressed Geagea.
Moreover, he reiterated the opposition’s call for holding an open parliamentary session to elect a president.
Priority must be given to electing a president, he demanded, saying this issue is not up to compromise. Berri must call for an open parliamentary session for the election in line with the constitution.
