Berri: Solutions in Lebanon Can Only Be Achieved through Dialogue

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed his disappointment with the political leaderships' handling of Lebanon's crisis, saying that it “harms the country more than foreign factors,” reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday.

His visitors on Thursday told the daily that the speaker emphasized that “there can be no solutions without dialogue.”

These solutions cover local and regional disputes, they explained in the wake of Berri's meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday.

The Iranian official had paid a two-day visit to Lebanon on Tuesday during which he met with a number of senior figures.

Berri revealed that his talks with Zarif tackled the presidential crisis in Lebanon, but the speaker did not delve into the details of the discussions, added al-Joumhouria.

“Iran believes that this is an internal Lebanese affair and has never interfered in this issue or any other Lebanese ones,” his visitors quoted him as saying.

Lebanon plunged in a political crisis in May last year, when MPs failed to find a successor to President Michel Suleiman.

The crisis led to a stop in parliamentary sessions and growing disputes in the government that have paralyzed the work of constitutional institutions.

M.T.

D.A.