‘Serious’ Consultations Underway between Miqati and Phalange to ‘Test Intentions’
Serious consultations are underway between Premier-designate Najib Miqati and the two main Christian parties in the March 14 forces -- the Phalange and the Lebanese Forces -- to mull their participation in the new cabinet.
High-ranking Phalange party officials told An Nahar daily in remarks published Tuesday that dialogue between the two sides was “serious” and that contacts started between Miqati and Phalange leader Amin Gemayel through telephone conversations and several meetings.
“We can’t define the stance of the party from participation in the government as black or white,” Phalange Caretaker Cabinet Minister Salim al-Sayegh said. “Our allies should be reassured by our performance.”
Gemayel “won’t give up a cause for which his son was martyred,” al-Sayegh told An Nahar.
“We can say that there are serious thoughts to participate” in the cabinet, he said. Miqati “should meet us midway through in terms of our commitments to the international tribunal, the solution to arms and the file of Lebanese detained in Syrian jails,” the caretaker minister added.
Phalange sources confirmed al-Sayegh’s remarks, telling pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that the stance from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is considered the cornerstone to any decision that the March 14 forces would take on the participation in the cabinet.
Former Premier Saad Hariri is fully aware of the ongoing contacts between Miqati and Gemayel, they said, stressing that there was a tendency to either accept the participation of all the parties within March 14 or boycott the cabinet as a single group.
The sources hinted that some party officials prefer that the Phalange participates in Miqati’s government even if the rest of the March 14 parties reject taking part in it.
However, negotiations between the two sides are necessary “to discover the stance and intentions” of Miqati and his supporters, the sources said.
As Safir newspaper said that Gemayel promised Miqati following their meeting at the residence of the premier-designate in Verdun on Monday to provide him with an answer soon.
The newspaper also quoted well-informed Phalange sources as saying that the price the party would pay by participating in the cabinet is much less than it could pay for staying out of the government.
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