Berri Says Nothing 'Tangible' on Resistance Dispute as Rivals Seek Compromise
Speaker Nabih Berri has reiterated that he would facilitate the adoption of the government's policy statement if the March 14 alliance showed some leniency amid a lack of optimism on the ability of a seven-member committee to reach a deal on the blueprint on Friday despite efforts to find a compromise on the controversial issue of the resistance.
“There is so far nothing tangible,” several officials, who visited Berri on Thursday, quoted him as saying.
The officials told local dailies published on Friday that the speaker expressed readiness “to be lenient if he felt there was leniency on behalf of others.”
President Michel Suleiman and the March 14 alliance on one side and the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp on the other are locked in a dispute on the resistance clause of the policy statement.
Suleiman and March 14 are upholding the Baabda Declaration. But March 8, which includes Berri's Amal movement, is insisting on including in the blueprint Lebanon’s right to armed resistance against Israeli occupation.
Berri warned his visitors that the ministerial committee tasked with drafting the policy statement has until March 17 to complete its work.
“If the document was not adopted by that time, the president should immediately call for new binding parliamentary consultations to name a new prime minster-designate,” he said.
The speaker met on Thursday with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat's envoy, Minister Wael Abou Faour, who reportedly briefed him that there were positive developments on the policy statement deadlock.
But Berri was more pessimistic, saying there were no signs that the blueprint would be approved during Friday's meeting.
He reiterated that he held onto the word “resistance” in the statement, and said: “No one has an interest in not reaching an agreement on it.”
Highly-informed sources told al-Joumhouria daily that the rival factions were negotiating a compromise on the issue of the resistance whereby the ministerial committee would adopt “Lebanon's right in resisting with all possible means” and “the respect of international resolutions and the decisions reached at the national dialogue table at Baabda Palace.”
Such wordings would appease Suleiman and March 8 and 14, and would allow the committee members to complete their blueprint and send it to parliament for a vote of confidence.
The sources expected the committee to hold another meeting early next week, saying its members needed time to read and make the last changes to the blueprint if the compromise statement was adopted on Friday.
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