Al-Rahi Holds Phone Conversations with Berri, Salam to 'Salvage the Country'
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi held on Thursday telephone conversations with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Tammam Salam on the dispute over the cabinet's policy statement, the National News Agency reported.
NNA said al-Rahi urged both Berri and Salam to exert stronger efforts to find a solution to the policy statement row between the March 8 and March 14 alliances.
He urged them “to salvage the country and seek the nation's higher interest,” the state-run agency said.
The government is scheduled to hold a session on Thursday afternoon to discuss the deadlock on the resistance clause of the policy statement.
If a seven-member ministerial committee fails to agree on the blueprint by Monday, the cabinet becomes resigned and President Michel Suleiman will have to call for binding parliamentary consultations to name a new premier.
But Salam has already threatened to resign to protest the conditions set by the March 8 and 14 alliances on the clause.
Also Thursday, al-Rahi met with Ministers Sejaan Qazzi and Alain Hakim, who represent the Phalange party in Salam's cabinet.
Qazzi said after the talks in Bkirki that the two ministers discussed with the patriarch the latest developments on the cabinet policy statement.
13 March 2014, 14:55
54
Patriarch should hang up his Jibi and run for political office, or he should cling to his jibi and leave the politics out of the church. He should not have ambitions to do both because by attempting both, he succeeds at neither.
13 March 2014, 15:34
22
In modern states, no FT, there is a separation of Church from State. The Church is not the State. When it was in Europe, there was nothing but discord. In the Third World now, in Sudan (Christian v. Muslim), in CAR (Christian v. Muslim), in Ukraine (Catholic v. Orthodox) there is conflict based on religious differences that have worked themselves into the government.
Lebanon is plagued by clerics who are politicians. Do Christians make that situation better or worse, by miming their Muslim counterparts?
13 March 2014, 17:03
21
FT, America is far from being a homogeneous country when it comes to race, religion, national origin or anything else. The only thing that binds the US together is its constitution and laws in which there is enshrined in the First Amendment the separation of church and state and the fact that no religion test shall be required to hold office.
We have religious people competing against atheists, but because political rights are not defined by religion, its not a source of discord.
13 March 2014, 18:37
11
FT, you get your information about America too much from Faux News, I'm afraid and it sounds like you have not spent much time in the States. Americans are all equal under the Constitution and laws regardless of race, color or creed. It doesn't matter about demographic majorities because the Constitution does not favor one religion over the other, one race over the other, or one group of people who share a nation of origin over the other. America is a nation of emigrants. We are all mongrels.
13 March 2014, 18:40
11
In Lebanon, do you really think that all Lebanese share the same culture? Really? There are 18 religious sects, women's rights are dependent upon which religion and culture they were born into.
To allow religion to be the organizing principle of a multi-cultural and religious nation like Lebanon is insane. Religions spout religious dogma, it is ideological, not subject to compromise or dilution. Yet, politics, statecraft is all about compromise and pragmatism to allow all the people in pluralistic state enjoy the benefits of citizenship. How is this done by religious leaders who are the exemplars of their religious doctrines, and not given to compromise?
13 March 2014, 18:54
20
M8 is rather working to salvage its privileges and interests ...
they do not care about the country and never did!
13 March 2014, 23:05
10
As I thought, FT, Fox News is your source and if you're getting it from "pure bred" Americans, over here we call those skin head White Supremists. To that bunch, me, being Lebanese American, 3rd generation, I'm not considered a "pure bred" American and if you came over here, you would be considered one either by your rather biased sources.
