Bassil: FPM to Participate in Dialogue Session, Reactions Taken Based on Outcome

Head of the Free Patriotic Movement Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil said his movement will decide the steps it plans to take depending on the outcome of the national dialogue session and the discussions on the perception of the national pact, As Safir daily reported on Monday.

“We will have stances based on the outcome of the discussions today at the dialogue session as per the perception of the national pact. What everyone should know is that we cannot continue in the dialogue or government if there is no agreement on the fundamentals and the pillars upon which Lebanon is based mainly the national pact,” said Bassil to the daily.

“We believe that the dialogue table has a guardian, Speaker Nabih Berri, and I would like to have a talk with him and understand if we (FPM) are considered from the people of this country or not,” he added.

The FPM boycotted the cabinet meeting in August as a “warning message,” cautioning that the country might be plunged into a political “system crisis” if the other parties do not heed the movement's demands.

The FPM's boycott decision is linked to the thorny issue of military appointments.

The movement alleges that the government meetings in the absence of the FPM ministers does not conform to the National Pact.

They plan to bring up the subject during the dialogue meeting at Ain el-Tineh today.

The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that distributed power among the country's religious communities and set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state.

On Prime Minister Tammam Salam's calls for a cabinet meeting on Thursday despite the FPM boycott's, Bassil said: “They will continue what they are doing, and we will continue to do what we are doing, so let us see how the country will carry on...”

“We have a bunch of cards in our hands, we reserve the right to use any at the right time,” he cautioned.