Aoun Criticizes Saniora for Boycotting Damascus Summit

Source: Al Manar TV, 01-04-2008
The Head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP General Michel Aoun on Monday expressed surprise at the Saudi stance that held the Lebanese national opposition responsible for not implementing the Arab League initiative concerning the political crisis despite its approval.
On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal lashed out at the Lebanese opposition and accused it of blatantly attacking the Arab League. "It is regretful to know that this was not only intended to derail the Arab initiative but to trespass it...in order to undermine Arab institutions," Faisal said.
Aoun also criticized Saudi Arabia for interfering in the electoral law of Lebanon. According to observers, Saudi Arabia is spearheading the assault on the Lebanese opposition; a move that is seen as a major Arab state siding with one Lebanese group against the other as well as defending a bankrupt ruling bloc that has so far failed to lay the ground for a solution in the country.
General Aoun, talking to reporters after a regular meeting by members of his Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, asked "why did the head of the unconstitutional government Fouad Saniora go to Senegal (For the Islamic Summit) and did not go to Syria (for the Arab Summit) when in both cases a Lebanese President was missing?" He accused Saniora of "cheating the people."
Aoun criticized Saniora for boycotting the Damascus summit adding that the ruling bloc "only follows the orders of the US administration. The General stressed Syria was not pressuring the opposition "because if it were doing so, it would have cancelled the political being of the opposition.
Aoun also warned that a plan had been adopted in Switzerland in 1996 for the gradual naturalization" of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The country's population structure, according to Aoun, "cannot absorb any naturalization." "Would the Americans accept to naturalize 42 million people in one batch?" he asked.