Kataeb Party calls for broad national backing of state-led negotiation efforts
The Kataeb's political bureau held its weekly meeting under the chairmanship of party leader Samy Gemayel and issued the following statement:
1- The political bureau calls for broad national support of the negotiation process launched by President Joseph Aoun, urging the creation of all the political and national conditions necessary to ensure its success. The talks should aim to consolidate the ceasefire, secure a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied areas in southern Lebanon, recover prisoners, enable the return of displaced residents to their villages, and ultimately bring the war to a definitive end.
2- The political bureau stresses that, regardless of the outcome of the ongoing war or the course of negotiations, neither the Lebanese State nor the Lebanese people can accept the continued existence of militia weapons outside the authority of the State. The presence of such arms poses a direct threat to Lebanon’s future, stability, economic recovery, and equality among its citizens.
The bureau also rejects any attempt to continue monopolizing national decision-making, emphasizing that Lebanon can only be protected through a strong State that alone holds the authority to decide matters of war and peace and fully exercises its sovereign powers through its constitutional institutions.
3- The political bureau condemns the campaigns of intimidation, accusations of treason, and threats carried out by the outlawed Hezbollah militia against political and religious figures, as well as against individuals within its own community who dissent from its positions.
Such tactics have failed, and will continue to fail, to silence voices calling for a sovereign and independent Lebanese State that exercises full national authority and controls its own national decision-making. These campaigns shall not dissuade opponents from confronting efforts to place Lebanon under Iranian tutelage.
