Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Monday threw his weight behind Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s embattled government over the trash crisis, while reiterating his Future Movement’s support for national dialogue and accusing Hezbollah of seeking to torpedo the all-party talks.

Hariri also lamented the ongoing garbage crisis after footage widely broadcast on television and shared on social media Sunday showed hundreds of bags of garbage floating down flooded streets in Beirut following heavy rains.

He called for a quick Cabinet meeting to implement Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb’s plan to resolve the 3-month-old garbage crisis, which has raised public health concerns nationwide.

“We firmly stand by premier Tammam Salam. We renew our confidence in his management, his wisdom and his ability, with the team headed by Minister Akram Chehayeb, to determine the necessary steps to overcome the obstacles that prevent the implementation of the potential and practical plans, and establish a comprehensive ecologic project that meets the hopes of the people and civil activists,” Hariri said in a statement released by his media office.

“Any Lebanese who has a sense of responsibility can only feel humiliated at the sight of the garbage that filled the streets of Beirut and all other areas. Hesitating about solving this crisis and continuing to announce the inability to cope with its risks are no longer acceptable,” he said.

Harri called for the implementation of the government’s plan, “whether through the decrees or procedures required to implement it, or by making all concerned parties assume their responsibilities.”

“Solving the garbage crisis requires everyone to assume their responsibilities to enable premier Salam to call for a Cabinet meeting as soon as possible, as the government is responsible for preparing and implementing plans, in the framework of national interest and the interests of all citizens.”

Hariri’s strong support for Salam was seen as a badly needed boost for his divided government, coming amid a reported threat by the prime minister to step down this week if Chehayeb’s plan was not implemented soon.

The plan, which has been stalled by public opposition in various areas, calls for dividing Beirut and Mount Lebanon’s trash between landfills in Akkar, the Bekaa Valley and potentially Burj Hammoud, while municipalities prepare to take responsibility for their own waste over the coming 18 months.

Hariri said the trash crisis has diverted attention from the items listed on the agenda of national dialogue, namely the presidential election, and the contentious issues that threaten the core of the nation’s fate.

He slammed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s latest anti-Saudi remarks, saying the party was not interested in dialogue when it comes to its military intervention in Syria or its armed presence in Lebanon.

“It is an occasion to renew our commitment to dialogue, despite all the ongoing attempts to drown it in futile controversy, emergency items and speeches that intimidate the Lebanese with regional events and imaginary victories,” Hariri said.

“We clearly and simply want dialogue to continue in the framework of Lebanese national unity, and not in the framework of preconditions, foreign orders, military parades that aim at intimidating, or bets that what we will not accept today we will accept when things go well for [Syrian President] Bashar Assad and when Hezbollah fighters return from Aleppo, Homs and Idlib carrying the flags of “victory” over the Syrian people.” Hariri’s statement came days after Nasrallah said he didn’t care if the Future ministers resigned from the government or walked out of national dialogue.

Responding to Nasrallah’s speech over the weekend in which he called on the Future Movement and its March 14 allies not to bet on regional developments to break the 17-month presidential stalemate, Hariri said: “We heard in the last few days talk about the dialogue and calls for the Future Movement and the March 14 forces to stop betting on regional changes. They also informed us that things are going toward more complications, and that we have no other choice but to surrender to the wishes of the Wali al-Faqih party, and this is the designation used by Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah to express the political reality of Hezbollah as a full-featured Iranian party.”

“Hezbollah does not want a dialogue that discusses its deviation from national consensus and its fighting in Syria,” Hariri said. “Hezbollah does not want a dialogue that addresses its departure from the public order and the fact that it considers its areas of political influence as military and security reserves where the state and its institutions are not allowed to intervene.”

“Hezbollah does not want a dialogue that discusses the proliferation of weapons and armed people in all areas.”

Hariri accused Nasrallah of seeking a dialogue to put the issue of the presidency aside and discuss other topics.

“On our part, we see that the function of national dialogue at this stage of Lebanon’s life should only be to decide the fate of the presidency, end the vacancy at the presidency, agree on a national figure who can reactivate the work of constitutional institutions,” Hariri said, adding: “Other than this, Hezbollah will lead dialogue to the whirlpool of the regional waiting time, which would be useless no matter how long it is.”

“But despite all this, we will not give Hezbollah a chance to eliminate dialogue, because there is no other way to organize disputes regardless of their intensity, and because around the dialogue table sit partners of ours in the loyalty to Lebanon, its national interest and coexistence among Lebanese,” he said.

“Dialogue was our choice since the beginning and we stuck to it in the most difficult circumstances. Dialogue is not a favor from anyone and will not be an apartment equipped with Iranian furniture to which Hezbollah invites whoever its wants whenever it wants,” he added.

In his statement, Hariri made no mention of a new round of talks between his Future Movement and Hezbollah scheduled to take place Tuesday at Speaker Nabih Berri’s residence in Ain al-Tineh as part of their ongoing dialogue aimed at easing sectarian tensions, stoked by the almost 5-year-old war in Syria.