Phalange Party Rejects One-Sided Cabinet, Urges Tighter Border Control

The Phalange Party on Monday said the current situations in Lebanon and the region require an “extraordinary cabinet” and called for immunizing Lebanon's borders against infiltrations and violations.

“The Phalange Party warns against turning Lebanon into an open arena for fundamentalist groups and voices concern over possible new attacks similar to the Dahieh bombing,” the party's political bureau said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

The party “sees in the incident a security alert that might be the beginning of a series of bomb attacks … and this can only be confronted through the endorsement by all political forces of the Baabda Declaration … and through forming a competent cabinet that is immunized by a broad political consensus,” said the statement.

“The current situation does not bear neither a one-sided cabinet nor on ordinary cabinet and the aforementioned circumstances must be taken into consideration to form an extraordinary, competent cabinet whose line-up would respect the political weights of all parties, in order to confront the extraordinary situations in Lebanon and the region,” the statement added.

The party called for “complementing the presidential statement issued by the U.N. Security Council through seeking to continue the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and to protect Lebanon from the political and security blaze that is engulfing Syria and the region.”

The conferees also called for “protecting the Lebanese borders and turning them into a secure area that is immune to any violations and infiltrations -- whichever side they may came from and in any direction.”

The party reiterated its support for the military institution and called for “keeping the army out of the political debate.”