Abou Faour: Contacts Underway in Bid to Reach Settlement over Policy Statement

Health Minister Wael Abou Faour on Sunday announced that “there is an attempt to make further political contacts in a bid to reach some settlement over the ministerial policy statement,” noting that “everyone agrees on the right to resistance.”

“The main point of contention in the panel drafting the policy statement is the stance over the weapons of the resistance and their relation with the state, not over the resistance in its entirety,” Abou Faour, the panel's spokesman, said.

“All parties agree that Lebanon must not be vulnerable in the face of Israel and therefore the right to resistance enjoys consensus, but the relation between this resistance and the state remains under discussion as well as the formula according to which the resistance would be given the right to act,” the minister added.

He endorsed Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's latest proposal, “who has called for settling for a couple of words in the policy statement.”

“This was our suggestion from the very beginning, when we said let the policy statement be extremely concise and let it say 'this cabinet of national interest will seek to secure the national interest',” Abou Faour added.

He noted that the March 8 and March 14 camps are quarreling over the policy statement “because each camp wants to prove its political point of view.”

“The issue needs a political decision from the political forces, specifically the two sides of the equation, which must settle for a part of their political beliefs and a part of their political stance,” the minister added.

On Friday, the committee drafting the ministerial policy statement failed anew to reach an agreement on the clause related to resisting Israel as the March 14 forces insisted on “the state's authority over everything.”

The committee's meeting was the seventh since Prime Minister Tammam Salam's cabinet was formed around two weeks ago.

The panel will hold a new session at the Grand Serail on Monday.

Salam has announced that his government's mission is combating terrorism and preparing for the upcoming presidential election.