Aoun: I Reject Anything Leading to Conflict, Even if This Rejection Cost Me Presidency
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Wednesday announced that he is against “anything that might lead to a Lebanese-Lebanese conflict” even if that prevented him from being elected as president, calling on all gunmen to withdraw from Syria.
“I reject anything that might lead to a Lebanese-Lebanese conflict, even if this rejection cost me the presidency,” Aoun said in an interview on Al-Arabiya television.
And as he noted that the alliances he made after returning to Lebanon from his French exile were “necessary to guarantee Lebanon's stability,” the FPM leader pointed out that he had paid a price over his alliance with Hizbullah, “especially in the issue of presidency.”
“I stood by (Progressive Socialist Party leader MP) Walid Jumblat and (MP) Marwan Hamadeh in the face of Syria when they were summoned (for interrogation by Damascus) and I stood by Hizbullah in the face of Israel,” Aoun added.
Turning to the issue of the Syrian crisis, Aoun called for “the withdrawal of all gunmen from Syria, especially Arabs, at least out of respect for the Arab League's charter.”
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