Sheikh Qassem: No link between recent incidents and Future decision to suspend participation

Source: nowlebanon.com, 08-06-2008

Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said he refused to link the recent incidents and the movement's decision to suspend participation in negotiations on the cabinet.

"When any security incidents happen, there is a normal security reference in the government, and that is the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese judicial system," Qassem said. "I do not think that continuous reference to the presence of armed men [in the streets] ... will address existing problems in a practical way, for there are no gunmen in the streets, and the army is controlling the situation in Beirut in coordination with security forces."

Sheikh Qassem said he suspected the dimensions attributed to the security incidents were an attempt to bring about a certain "effect."

In an interview with Kuwaiti daily Al-Dar, Qassem denied that the Doha agreement was "just a long political truce," adding that the Hizbullah-led opposition was ready for dialogue on all topics around a dialogue table. "President Michel Suleiman's term may be the overture to multiple dialogues through the government... It is also possible that the other side will not respond to constitutional mechanisms, and the period of time until the parliamentary elections is just a waiting period in anticipation of the results of these elections," Qassem said.

"We have two choices: either we succumb to the theories of demarcation lines and internal discord, frontlines of fighting and a national impasse; or, we accept that the army takes over security in Beirut after we put an end to these attempts at inciting problems in Beirut."

Qassem said Hizbullah had chosen the second option, adding that "what happened in Beirut" had protected the opposition and Lebanon from sectarian strife, which would only have implicated the army in an internal crisis.