Hamadeh Says Bassil-Muallem Meeting Has 'No Connection to Refugees' Return'
Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil is expected to comment on the uproar in Beirut over his meeting with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem in New York, a meeting which Education Minister Marwan Hamadeh said “falls in the context of stepping away from Lebanon's dissociation policy,” and does not serve the issue of refugees' return, al-Joumhouria daily reported Wednesday.
“Bassil-Muallem meeting has nothing to do with the return of refugees because there will be no return until safe areas are secured under a political solution. The Syrian regime has abandoned them because it wants to change Syria's demographics,” Hamadeh told the daily..
“Antagonism towards the Arab world and hostile positions towards Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and then this normalization with the Syrian regime, will only lead to deterioration of political consensus and the collapse of the economic situation in Lebanon,” added the minister.
“Bassil-Muallem meeting takes a course different from visits made by (two) ministers (Industry Hussein Hajj Hasan and Agriculture Ghazi Zoaiter) that were categorized as personal to Damascus. It compliments series of statements and positions that all fall in the scope of distancing (Lebanon) from the dissociation policy, from the spirit of the ministerial statement and even from the oath of office,” he said.
Hasan and Zoaiter visited Damascus on their personal capacity in August.
Minister Hamadeh said he “fears for the state, especially of what is coming from the side of the foreign ministry.”
He said that the danger facing Lebanon is economic as the result of “erroneous foreign policies and hostility towards the Arab world.”
Bassil held talks with his Syrian counterpart in New York on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting.
Media reports said the Syrian side agreed that the refugees should return to their country from Lebanon but noted that Syrian authorities need to make some internal arrangements before the displaced can return home.