BEIRUT: Minister for the Displaced Alaaeddine Terro said Saturday any future national dialogue could include a variety of subjects barring the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
“All subjects can be proposed for discussions during national dialogue except for the Special Tribunal [for Lebanon] because it is a subject that was arrived at through internal consensus and it should not be politicized,” Terro, a member of MP Walid Jumblatt’s National Struggle Front, told a local a radio station.
“Ministers belonging to the National Struggle Front will vote in favor of funding the court and this issue is final and not amenable to change,” Terro added. Jumblatt’s parliamentary bloc maintains three seats in Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Cabinet.
The minister said discussions were under way with President Michel Sleiman and Mikati on the issue of the controversial court in order to prevent a further fissuring among the country’s politicians.
Jumblatt, who maintains he is a centrist in the government of Mikati, has voiced alongside the prime minister and president support for funding Lebanon’s share of the tribunal’s budget, worth $32 million.
Terro expressed hope that the government would respect Sleiman and Mikati’s positions on the matter of funding the court, saying they “had pledged before the highest international authorities to fund.”
In September, both Mikati and Sleiman were in New York on the occasion of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting and they both voiced Lebanon's commitments to international resolutions, including those relating to the STL, which in late June indicted four members of Hezbollah in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hezbollah has denied involvement in the case and has vowed not to cooperate with the Hague based court.
The Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition, which wields a majority in Mikati’s government, has opposed funding for the U.N.-backed court.
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