LF Officials Criticize Aoun's Response to Iranian Remarks
A number of officials from the Lebanese Forces party on Sunday criticized President Michel Aoun’s response to controversial remarks by a top Iranian general.
“Where is the General Michel Aoun whom I know regarding freedom, sovereignty and independence?” ex-minister Richard Kouyoumjian, head of the LF foreign relations dept., tweeted.
“Mr. President, your tenure has turned into another Iranian model, like al-Huthi in Yemen, al-Maliki in Iraq and Bashar in Syria. Do you know that the least that is being said today is that Lebanon has turned into a failed, violated, isolated and bankrupt state where unemployment, poverty, disease and misery are prevalent?” Kouyoumjian added.
Ex-MP Fadi Karam, the secretary of the LF-led Strong Republic bloc, meanwhile told Aoun in a tweet that his political movement is “still labeling as resistance… the mini-state that is loyal to the Iranian project.”
“This means that you have definitely renounced Lebanese sovereignty, so it would be more honorable for you to refrain from fictional statements,” Karam added.
“There should not be resistance weapons outside of the army’s arsenal. We totally understand that you are not free and that you have exchanged keenness on sovereignty for a few posts,” the LF official went on to say.
MP Pierre Bou Assi of the LF for his part said that Aoun should have said that “there is no partner for the Lebanese state in preserving the country’s independence and sovereignty over its border and territory.”
Aoun had earlier tweeted that “the Lebanese have no partner in preserving their country’s independence, its sovereignty over its border and territory, and the freedom of its decision.”
His tweet came in response to remarks by Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the chief of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Hajizadeh told Hizbullah’s al-Manar TV on Saturday that “all the missile capabilities that Gaza and Lebanon possess were achieved through Iran’s support.”
“They are the frontline for the confrontation” against Israel, he added.
Source: Naharnet
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