Rifi Urges Hizbullah to 'Reevaluate' its Decisions: We Are Ruled by the State Only
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi called on Hizbullah on Saturday to reevaluate its decisions and "return to the Lebanese state."
"We must benefit from the new regional and international developments to get our country out of the Syria war,” Rifi stressed in an interview with MTV.
He elaborated: “We believe that we can only be ruled by the state and Hizbullah must reevaluate its decisions.”
"We have called on the party to withdraw from Syria, we warned it that it cannot have self-security, and we said that all its activities must be within the state.”
Rifi also noted that issue of communicating with Hizbullah was given “a much greater importance than it deserves.”
The minister had announced earlier this week that his political camp is seeking “stronger” communication with Hizbullah in a bid to “protect the country.”
“There is an intent to revive the channels of communication with Hizbullah in a strong manner instead of maintaining the current low-intensity contacts, in order to protect the country which has been exhausted by the Sunni-Shiite tension,” he said as he entered a cabinet session on Wednesday.
Answering a question about being behind some fighting groups in the northern city of Tripoli, the former Internal Security Forces chief stressed that his supporters are not armed.
“We know who is armed in this country, which group has military capabilities, and who paid money to raise tension in the city,” he stated.
“We just had a defensive response to the attacks, using the minimal means we have,” he added.
Rifi assured that the security plan, which kicked off on Tuesday, continues to be implemented in Tripoli, and that it will expand to include the Bekaa and Beirut.
S.D.B.
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