Suleiman to Launch Initiative after GCC Action against Hizbullah
President Michel Suleiman is expected to launch an initiative to find ways to confront a decision by Gulf Cooperation Council countries to take measures against Hizbullah's military intervention in Syria, Baabda palace sources said Wednesday.
The sources told An Nahar daily that the initiative comes in the presence of a caretaking cabinet and the absence of the new government that Premier-designate Tammam Salam is seeking to form.
A GCC statement issued late Monday said the measures against Hizbullah members will affect their "residency permits, and financial and commercial transactions.”
The statement urged the Lebanese government to "assume its responsibilities towards the behavior of Hizbullah and its illegal and inhumane practices in Syria and the region."
The bloc strongly condemned "the flagrant intervention of Hizbullah in Syria" and its "participation in shedding the blood of the Syrian people."
Fighters from Hizbullah openly spearheaded a 17-day assault on the Syrian town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border which culminated with its recapture from the rebels last Wednesday.
Suleiman met with Loyalty to the Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammed Raad at Baabda palace on Tuesday.
The presidential sources told An Nahar that Suleiman stressed to Raad the importance of noninterference in Syria's war and the commitment to the Baabda Declaration.
The president told the Hizbullah lawmaker that the all-party talks should be revived to “avoid a disaster.”
Suleiman also hoped that Hizbullah would help investigators in their probe into the deadly attack on protesters near the Iranian embassy on Sunday, the sources said.
Hizbullah members wielding batons assaulted protesters from the Lebanese Option Party and killed one of them after shooting him in the abdomen outside the mission in the neighborhood of Bir Hassan in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The demonstrators had barely time to stage their rally near the mission when they came under attack by the Hizbullah members who were wearing black shirts with yellow ribbons around their arms.
But the presidential sources told An Nahar that Raad denied the party's involvement in the assault.
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