Now Lebanon - Aridi: PSP does not view STL as US-Israeli scheme, October 18, 2011

Progressive Socialist Party minister Ghazi Aridi said in remarks published on Tuesday that his party “does not view the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) as a US-Israeli scheme,” adding that the PSP “has the conviction of the principle to establish the STL to achieve justice.”
“We believe that we did not agree to a US-Israeli plan,” Aridi told An-Nahar newspaper in reference to the tribunal established by the UN Security Council Resolution 1757, adding, however, that the PSP agrees with Hezbollah that “Israel wants to use anything [related to] the STL or other matter… [to cause harm].”
“Israel’s nature is to try to use anything to cause problems, divisions and weaken all the countries in the region,” the minister added.
Aridi also said that his party condemned all media reports on the STL, adding that “the STL has to deal with such gaps…”
PSP leader MP Walid Jumblatt said on Friday night that he will vote for funding the STL probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Four Hezbollah members have been indicted by the STL in the 2005 assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri. However, the Shia group strongly denied the charges and refused to cooperate with the court saying that it is a US-Israeli plot targeting the Syrian- Iranian-backed Shia group.
Lebanon contributes 49 percent of the STL’s annual funding.