Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Cabinet meets Monday amid a wide gap over the issue of military and security appointments, while differences over handling the security situation on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal have been narrowed, Education Minister Elias Bou Saab said Sunday.
“We don’t expect any security appointments to be made Monday because this is a very contentious issue,” Bou Saab, who belongs to MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, told The Daily Star.
He suggested that this sensitive topic would again be postponed to a Cabinet session Thursday, a day before the term of Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous expires.
“The issue of Arsal and its outskirts is not as divisive as the security appointments,” Bou Saab said. “Our position along with that of the Future Movement, and even Hezbollah, is that the Lebanese Army must shoulder responsibility for defending Arsal and its outskirts.”
Speaker Nabih Berri promised to defend the Cabinet, threatened by differences among ministers over the issues of security and military appointments, and Arsal’s outskirts.
“The issue of Arsal as a town is being tackled. The Army has begun its measures in some of its neighborhoods,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence. “The case of Arsal as a town is one thing and its outskirts is another. Sectarian sensitivity has been removed from the town’s file and the Army is responsible for its security.”
Referring to militants based on Arsal’s outskirts, Berri said: “I have publicly said that it is the right of the state, the Army, the people and the resistance to liberate any occupied inch of Lebanese territories in the south, east, or even in the west toward the sea, and not to keep the occupation. I am with the resistance in any occupied place.”Berri reiterated his stance on the military and security appointments. “I am still for the appointment [of new officers] in military and security positions. But if this appointment could not be achieved, the extension [of the Army and ISF chiefs’ terms] is imperative to avoid vacuum,” he said.
Bou Saab said that Aoun’s bloc, which is represented by three ministers along with an allied minister from the Marada Movement, would not accept to discuss any other topic on the Cabinet agenda before the issues of security appointments and Arsal have been addressed.
Bou Saab’s remarks came shortly after Aoun warned Sunday that the Lebanese Army would lose if it did not act to expel Islamist militants entrenched on Arsal’s rugged terrain.
Ministers from the FPM and Hezbollah have demanded in previous Cabinet sessions that the Army should be granted a free hand to oust ISIS and Nusra Front militants from Arsal’s outskirts. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has also pledged to liberate Arsal’s outskirts from the militants if the Lebanese state failed to do so.
However, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Future Movement ministers and officials have warned Hezbollah against attacking Arsal, saying that protection of the town is the responsibility of the Lebanese state and Army.
Aoun, who has warned the government against extending the terms of the Army and ISF chiefs, is lobbying for the appointment of his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, the head of the Army Commando Unit, as Army commander replacing Gen. Jean Kahwagi, who retires on Sept. 23.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said he expected a political confrontation during Monday’s Cabinet session over how to deal with jihadis based on the outskirts of Arsal. “We are ready for all options. We will have a political confrontation at the Cabinet tomorrow and afterward,” he said in a speech during a tour of the Bekaa Valley. “The Cabinet will not rest. The Cabinet was formed to maintain the concept of genuine partnership in Lebanon.”
Bassil said the situation on Arsal’s outskirts needs to be dealt firmly by the Army. He said it is the Army’s duty to liberate Arsal since a military intervention would ward off sectarian strife.
Separately, Prime Minister Tammam Salam leaves for Saudi Arabia Tuesday on a two-day official visit during which he will have talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdel-Aziz and other senior officials on strengthening bilateral relations, especially since thousands of Lebanese families are living in the kingdom and other Gulf states, sources close to the premier said.
Salam will also thank the kingdom for its political and financial support, particularly the $4 billion given in Saudi grants to buy arms to bolster the capabilities of the Army and security forces in the battle against terrorism.
Salam’s talks will also cover Arab and regional developments and efforts to combat terrorism, the sources said.
The premier is carrying with him ideas for infrastructure projects in the most impoverished Lebanese areas in north Lebanon, namely in Tripoli and Akkar, as well as projects for communities hosting Syrian refugees in Lebanon, they added.
During his visit, Salam, to be accompanied by Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, Bassil and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, is expected to hold talks with Hariri, the sources said.
The Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri praised Salam’s Saudi visit, saying it comes at “difficult regional circumstances and developments, reflecting the importance of continued consultations between the leaders of the two brotherly countries.”
He said the ministers accompanying Salam on his visit would meet their Saudi counterparts.
“This will provide an opportunity to boost communications between the ministries in both countries that will benefit inter-institution relations and help in facilitating the citizens’ affairs,” Asiri said in a statement.
“The visit will be an occasion for the kingdom’s leadership to assert the strong brotherly and historic relations linking the two brotherly countries and peoples and supporting the Lebanese government and all state institutions, at the forefront of which is the presidency,” Asiri said.
Referring to the yearlong presidential vacuum, he said, “The kingdom urges all Lebanese political parties to agree on the election of a new president as soon as possible, in addition to reviving inter-Lebanese dialogue … and avoiding external divisive issues that Lebanon has nothing to do with.”