Caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour denied that the Lebanese president filed a complaint against Syria, stressing that it was nothing more than “a communication of information.”
“No complaint was filed by President Michel Suleiman , it was only a communication of information, therefore there’s no place for the word ‘complaint’ here, since complaints cannot be made against brothers,” Mansour said during a meeting with a delegation of the Lebanese Order of Editors on Friday.
“Can I complain against a country with which I have signed joint security and defense agreements, or do I abide by these agreements?” the FM asked.
The president was criticized following reports that he filed complaint in June with the UN and Arab League over “the violations and aggressions committed against the Lebanese territory by all the fighting parties in Syria.”
Suleiman reportedly contacted the UN mission directly because Mansour refused to file a complaint with the UN , since he reportedly believes that existing agreements between Lebanon and Syria prevent Lebanon from taking such a step because the agreements consider Syria a sister state, according a report by al Hayat newspaper.
Suleiman’s complaint comes amid repeated shelling of Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley region by Syrian regime forces targeting the majority Sunni town of Arsal.
Mansour, a member of the Amal Movement, a close ally of the Hezbollah militant group which is fighting in Syria alongside the Syrian regime has resisited in the past filing any complaints against the Syrian regime.
It is not clear whether Mansour was well informed about the complaint by Suleimna or kept in the dark due to his alliance with Hezbollah and Syria.
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