Jumblat Wants Settlement before Indictment

Druze leader Walid Jumblat said he wants a settlement to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon before an indictment is issued.

He told As-Safir newspaper in remarks published Monday that he supports Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's comments which stated that a solution is necessary before the STL issues an indictment in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri.

Nasrallah's comments were made during a graduation ceremony on Sunday.

Jumblat believed Nasrallah's speech underlined the importance of the Syrian-Saudi initiative, adding that "information about the presence of great hope to achieve positive results are accurate."

Later on Tuesday, Jumblat stated that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Lebanon raised the issue of the Palestinian cause and “affirmed that it is the central issue” in the region.

“The Turkish position is aimed at extracting Lebanon from sectarian rhetoric and restore its historic position towards the main conflict in the region, which is the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine.