Al-Rahi Urges 'National Paper, Unified Stance' from Baabda Talks
The all-party talks that President Michel Aoun will host in Baabda on Thursday must result in a “national document” and a “unified stance,” Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged on Sunday.
He described the president’s call for the meeting as “a national duty that his conscience dictated to him as a president of the nation who took an oath to protect the constitution and protect people’s unity and the public interest.”
“The invitation honors whoever receives it,” al-Rahi added in his Sunday Mass sermon.
Calling on participants to “address the core of the problem and propose a real solution, without reticence, settlements or bargaining,” the patriarch said the meeting should produce “a national document that would be at the level of the current dangerous events.”
He said such a documents should “devise a firm roadmap including a unified stance on the issues that led to political, financial, economic and social collapse as well as to security and military threats.”
“The document must rectify choices and courses, guide governance, launch reforms and return Lebanon to its position and prestige so that it can reconcile with its Arab neighbourhood and regain the world’s confidence,” al-Rahi added.
Participants must seek to “emphasize Lebanon’s unity and neutrality; achieve broad administrative decentralization; preserve the state’s legitimate authority, especially that of its security and military agencies; and truly acknowledge the state’s exclusive authority over its entire territory,” the patriarch said.
They must also “abide by the resolutions of international legitimacy, combat corruption in all its dens and liberate the judiciary of any interference or political and partisan influence.”
Addressing political leaders, al-Rahi said Lebanon’s young protesters on the streets want the Baabda meeting to provide answers to their “needs, concerns and fears over their future and the fate of their country.”
“Do not let them down,” he urged.
Source: Naharnet
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