Zahra: LF-FPM Ties Going the 'Acceptable' Way

Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra clarified that the party's ties with the Free Patriotic Movement are going in a “reasonable” way, adding that differentiation must be made between “President Michel Aoun and his political faction.”

“Relations between the LF and FPM are going in a reasonable framework. The LF positions are adopted according to each file where the approach is based on the political and national plan,” said Zahra, noting that "there is a radical disagreement with the FPM and other parties on the issue of communication with the Syrian regime to resolve the file of displaced persons.”

Zahra said that promoting communication with the Syrian regime for the end of returning the displaced back to Syria “invites for the return of the Syrian influence in Lebanon through normalizing relations between the two countries,” he told VDL (93.3) in an interview.

Denouncing a meeting that brought FPM leader and Foreign Minstrel Jebran Bassil with the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem last month, Zahra said :”Bassil's position is unacceptable mainly his meeting with his Syrian counterpart Muallem, or in which he said he is racist about the issue of the displaced," he said.

Early in October, Bassil had stressed that the FPM will not tolerate the creation of Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon, saying “Yes, we are racist Lebanese and at the same time we are open to the world and no one has the right to lecture us about being humanitarian.”

In recent months, there have been rising calls to repatriate the refugees but also warnings against racist rhetoric.

Zahra emphasized: “The issue of national complacency brings down governments, not ministers, and we must differentiate between President Aoun and his political faction," he said stressing that "the ministers of the Lebanese Forces will not be false witnesses to any settlement that contradicts national sovereignty."

In 2016 the LF and FMP mended their shaken ties in a unity display in what was named then the Maarab agreement.

The two agreed on ten national issues including the role of the state's security and military apparatuses and the country's foreign policy.