Jumblat: We Can Do without New May 7, Remarks of Sayyed, Aoun Rejected

Lebanon can do without armed clashes similar to those of May 7, 2008 and the recent remarks of former head of General Security, Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun "are rejected," Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said Thursday.

In an interview with LBC TV, Jumblat said that "the presumptions presented" by Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon were "very important," noting that "the tribunal's issue can be solved between (Premier Saad)Hariri and Nasrallah, so there's no need to topple it (STL) through street" riots.

"It seems that some in the March 8 camp don't favor Hariri's rapprochement with Syria," Jumblat said.

Answering a question Jumblat noted that "the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has been a part of the game of nations from the onset."

"I won't change the previous testimony I gave to (former head of the U.N. commission investigating ex-PM Rafik Hariri's murder Detlev) Mehlis, because it contains doubt and not accusation," Jumblat told his interviewer.

He noted that "speaking of sparing Syria and attacking Hizbullah is stupidity, and Hariri acknowledges the relation between the two sides which has been solid since 1983 up till now."

Jumblat quoted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as telling him: "We keep the STL, but the indictment's content must be revised."

"To postpone the indictment is to postpone the problem, and here lies the importance of the necessary meeting between Hariri and Nasrallah," Jumblat stressed.

"I repeat what I had previously said: If the price of justice was civil strife and the jeopardizing of civil peace, then it would be better to recoil."

Jumblat called for dropping the Lebanon First motto, saying "we can't go neither to the sea nor to Israel, we have to go to Syria."