Berri says did not know about EU deal, warns against populist approach

Parliament will convene Wednesday to discuss a deal with the EU including a financial package of $1 billion for Lebanon.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen had announced $1 billion in aid for Lebanon during a visit to the crisis-hit country and urged it to tackle illegal migration to the bloc.

Supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement have protested Thursday in front of the U.N headquarters against the deal, that many in Lebanon criticized.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said he does not oppose the donation unless it is linked with keeping the Syrian refugees in Lebanon in exchange.

He said his block has not yet decided whether to attend the session or not but that he personally prefers that the bloc attends to discuss the matter and seek clarification from the government about the donation.

Geagea had earlier told The Associated Press that European authorities are mainly concerned “that the refugees don’t go to Europe."

"For us the problem is that we cannot have our country drowning in illegal Syrian refugees,” Geagea said, urging for Syrians to be sent back to either government or opposition-held areas of the neighboring country.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri who had met with von der Leyen after she announced the aid package said she did not discuss it with him "in any way whatsoever."

Berri told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Friday that the refugee crisis is a national responsibility, as he urged the Lebanese leaders to deal with the issue responsibly away from populism and competitiveness.

He hoped that Wednesday's session will constitute an opportunity to rectify the approach to the refugee crisis by dealing with it as "a common concern" that requires everyone’s cooperation.

The war in Syria that erupted in 2011 after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests has killed more than half a million people and displaced around half of the pre-war population.

Lebanon has also faced nearly seven months of border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel that flared the day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in the Gaza Strip.

The eastern Mediterranean country remains essentially leaderless, without a president and headed by a caretaker government with limited powers amid deadlock between entrenched political barons.

Lebanese political officials have been calling for years for the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or assist in returning them to Syria — voluntarily or not. Lebanese security forces have stepped up deportations of Syrians over the past year.

Tensions around the presence of refugees have further flared since an official with the Lebanese Forces party, Pascal Suleiman, was killed last month in what military officials said was a botched carjacking by a Syrian gang. The incident prompted outbreaks of anti-Syrian violence by vigilante groups.

Some Lebanese politicians have blamed Syrians for their country's worsening troubles, and pressure often mounts ahead of an annual conference on Syria held in Brussels, with a ministerial meeting set for May 27.

In a televised interview Thursday, Geagea called on the Lebanese diaspora to participate in a protest during the ministerial meeting in Brussels to demand that aid be given to Syrians inside their country and not in Lebanon.