In an interview with al-Quds television on Sunday, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said that his upcoming visit to Syria would be an introductory one that would give him the opportunity to meet with Syrian officials whom he had not yet met.
Aoun said the meeting would include discussions on the situation in the region, however, he added, “I am not an official; the talks will be an exchange of views.”
He rejected the assertion that his visit was like the return of a “lost son” or a reflection of “regret” for his choices. Instead Aoun described the upcoming visit as “an evaluation tour and a friendship visit.”
“The issue that has not yet been resolved with Syria is the demarcation of borders. As for the issues of the missing persons and diplomatic relations, their resolution is underway,” he said.
Aoun said he was not concerned about recent criticisms of his planned visit to Damascus. “The reactions to my visit to Syria will end. They all want to visit Syria. Whoever is criticizing me now has benefitted from Syria. What would the Future Movement have been without Syria?” he asked.
With regard to his recent visit to Tehran, Aoun said it had “left a positive impact. Any opening of any door leaves a positive impact. Iran carried out friendly behavior, and it did not help the Lebanese against one another.”
He added that his Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah had prevented violence from occurring in some regions, as it “broke the psychological barrier between people.”
“The decisions that were taken by the cabinet on May 7 were decisions of war against Hezbollah. They did not have the right and there was no intention at all of using weapons in Beirut,” he said, with regard to the government’s attempt to take control of Hezbollah’s communications network and sack an alleged Hezbollah security official from his position at Beirut’s international airport.
“The military shock has not resolved issues. What resolved the issue was the Doha Agreement. What happened militarily pushed the factions to head to the dialogue table,” he continued.
“The petro-dollar today is a great threat to the [2009 parliamentary] elections. No one is threatened by weapons and I am not afraid,” he said, adding that financing from external sources constituted a “huge” problem.
Aoun added that President Michel Sleiman did not want to have a parliamentary bloc and said these claims came from people who wanted to move away from March 14 in order to be closer to the president. “Either these people run these elections on my side or they are my adversaries,” he continued, speaking about his political rivals.
“I have no fears that the elections will not happen. He who does not want a new May 7, should not obstruct the elections. We want elections and whoever wants to stop them wants to maintain power,” he said. Aoun warned that any attempt to disrupt the elections would create “a revolutionary situation and we will have to resist it.”