In the wake of President Michel Aoun labeling the Qabrshamon incident as an ambush on Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, Progressive Socialist Party member and Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour held the latter fully responsible for the deadly shooting on June 30.
Speaking during a televised news conference, the PSP laid out its own version of events, putting the blame on Bassil for “the Basatin incident, morally, politically and legally, from A to Z.”
Abu Faour accused Bassil of stirring sectarian tensions during a number of his visits across Lebanese villages and towns, describing his talks as “divisive.”
Bassil was scheduled for a tour of Aley on the day of the shooting, to be capped off with a speech in the village of Kfar Matta. As tensions spilled onto the streets, which resulted in the death of two of Lebanese Democratic Party member and State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib’s bodyguards, Bassil canceled the rest of his tour.
The Free Patriotic Movement and LDP have had their fair share of disagreements with the PSP, the LDP’s main Druze rivals.
“The visit of any other minster or MP would not have resulted in such violence,” Abu Faour said.
Abu Faour then addressed President Michel Aoun, the FPM’s founder and Bassil’s father in law, questioning his role in the matter.
“Do you appreciate the magnitude of the risks facing Lebanon and its civil and political stability in the wake of your political heir’s destructive and fanatical discourse?”
As a result of the political crisis, Lebanon’s government hasn’t convened in more than a month as Prime Minister Saad Hariri attempts to settle the dispute away from the Cabinet’s roundtable.
AN NAHAR
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