Bou Habib says not in New York to 'confront Americans'

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that he is not going to New York to “confront anyone or be a reason for obstructing any agreement related to the extension of UNIFIL’s mandate.”

“What concerns Lebanon is lowering the tensions that sometimes result from clashes between residents and some UNIFIL members as well as the tensions caused by Israel,” Bou Habib said in an interview with the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper published Thursday.

“Addressing these two issues will lower the chances of war and its regional repercussions and will secure stability for Lebanon as it begins to extract its gas resources from the regional waters. This will be our message in New York and it won’t be a message to challenge the Americans or others,” the minister added.

“Should the (U.N.) Security Council reject it, it will bear the responsibility for the deterioration of the security situation in the South, and that’s why I will hold meetings with the ambassadors of the Security Council member states and with the U.N. secretary-general to relay this message,” Bou Habib went on to say.