Karami Wants Taif Amended to Get Rid of Sectarianism

 
Source: nowlebanon, 14-12-2008
Former Prime Minister Omar Karami said that the "time has not come for the amendment of the Taif agreement," though it is not "a Quran or the Bible" and thus he supported the idea of its amendment.
On Sunday, Karami addressed popular delegations and political figures at his office in Tripoli after recently returning from the Hajj in Mecca.
"There are a lot of gaps in the Taif agreement and there is a misunderstanding concerning the powers of the prime minister. Some think... that it has stripped the president of his power and granted it instead to the prime minister, but this is not true."
He went on to say "the powers were granted to the government and not to the prime minister."
However, Karami said that Taif should be amended not to restore the powers of the president [which Karami held before the civil war] but rather to "get rid of the fundamentalist and horrible sectarianism which stands as a hurdle in the face of Lebanon's development and the building of its institutions and the state of law."
On his visit to Saudi Ararbia, Karami said that it was "100 percent religious."
Nevertheless, "Saudi Arabia has an essential role and has a great influence in Lebanon and if an understanding wasn't reached between all the Arab states ... Lebanon would not rest," Karami said. "If there is no Syrian-Saudi understanding there won't be any rest or stability in Lebanon," he added.
Karami called for political calm in light of high levels of tension in the last weeks, "as if no one has learned the lessons from the painful events in the past"