Naharnet

Aoun: Syrian Crisis is Over, Another One-Way Ticket Awaits Hariri when he Returns

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that another one-way ticket awaits former Prime Minister Saad Hariri if he returns to Lebanon, noting that the Syrian crisis is over.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “He can say whatever he wants. Who asked him not to return? There is another type of one-way ticket if he wants to return to Lebanon and he knows it.”

Addressing the reporters at his press conference, the MP said: “Next Tuesday you will tell me if the crisis in Syria has persisted. I believe that it is over.”

On U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s statements that the U.S. administration is prepared to cooperate with Islamists in Tunisia and whether that poses a threat to Christians, Aoun noted: “Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea spoke of Sunni-Shiite strife and attempts to thwart the Iranian ambitions in the area. The Christians are part of those attempts and the naturalization of Palestinians will force them to leave the country.”

“Is Clinton laughing at us? They oversimplify matters and if they really understood them, they would not have entered Iraq and Afghanistan,” he continued.

“The U.S. is incapable of settling the conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, and North Korea,” he added.

“Israel will fail after the July 2006 war and once the U.S. launches a war, it fails,” he noted.

“What is preventing them from striking a truce in Syria and then igniting the conflict all over again?” Aoun wondered.

Indirectly addressing Hariri, Aoun said: “Whoever is waiting to return to Lebanon after the collapse of the Syrian regime will have to wait a long time for this to happen.”

On the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, he stated: “I am not a slave for Europe or the United States.”

“We will not fund the STL as long as our questions on it to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and others remain unanswered,” the FPM leader remarked.

Addressing demands for Hizbullah to lay down its arms, the MP said: “Once the army is granted autonomy then they may request the party to lay down its weapons, not the other way around.”


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