Plumbly: Hasan's Assassination Aims to Destabilize Lebanon

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly stressed on Saturday that the assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau chief Wissam al-Hasan only aims to destabilize Lebanon, calling for punishing the perpetrators.

In an interview to the Voice of Lebanon Radio (93.3), Plumbly stated that the United Nations Security Council will not interfere in Lebanon's internal affairs or take any decision to change the current government.

Hasan was assassinated last week in a massive car bomb in Beirut's Ashrafiyeh district.

The assassination angered the opposition March 14 alliance, which blamed the Syrian regime for the crime and accused the cabinet of Prime Minister Najib Miqati of covering up for it and has since been demanding its resignation.

Forming a new cabinet in Lebanon is an internal affair and the Security Council will not interfere in the matter, Plumbly said while stressing the necessity that efforts exerted by President Michel Suleiman to ease disputes succeed.

Plumbly met earlier with head of the al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora.

He said after the talks that he and Saniora discussed the next steps to be taken in Lebanon.

He expressed a belief that there is agreement on the core issues of the current crisis mainly the security situation, the cabinet's policy of dissociation, and to holding the parliamentary elections in 2013.

It is crucial that the dialogue initiated by Suleiman be resumed, said the U.N. official, stressing the need to reach the approval of all parties to preserve Lebanon form any divisions.