Mikati: A solution at our expense unacceptable!

During a ceremony declaring Tripoli as the " Arab Capital of Culture ", Caretaker government MP Najib Mikati delivered a speech, including the following:

13 years ago, Tripoli, like other Lebanese cities, witnessed the arrival of a big number of displaced Syrians who have become a burden today on Lebanon, our country that welcomed them. Today, we are calling for effective solutions to the crisis of their displacement, and their safe return to their home country. The government has already put in place a series of steps and decisions that have been implemented by the concerned authorities to accomplish some radical changes. The Lebanese delegation to the Brussels conference has also tackled this file with all its repercussions and demanded European countries to take part in the responsibility of finding solutions.

The UNHCR is also responsible of this file. The organization has to effectively cooperate with the Lebanese government to concretize our demands that were presented by the FM. We don’t accept any solution to this crisis that would endanger our country and our sovereignty even further. Lebanon should not be the only country responsible of this file, we no longer have the capability to do so, in the presence of this big number of Syrians.

If we applied the rule of renewal of history at the level of public policy in Lebanon, the same crises would not have been repeated in our lives. The state of disruption we are experiencing today is nothing but history that repeats itself.

Lebanese politicians do not learn from the mistakes of the past, instead they repeat them causing severe damage to the country and to the citizens in these dire times. We can see the repercussions of their actions in the living conditions due to the economic and financial crises, or in the security situation due to the repercussions of the Gaza war or even the burden that every village and city have to bear due to the Syrian displacement.”

Why are some insisting on reliving the past instead of renewing it? Why are we not putting an end to this state of disruption so that the constitutional institutions can play their roles? Don’t we need a new president? And for the most important question, why is there an insistence on negativity, destruction, and hindering the government plans, which is relentlessly working to persevere the entity of our country and its institutions?

From this city, I reiterate and confirm that there is no place for desperation in our souls and we are determined to work together, united, to overcome these difficult times in the history of our nation. We would like to ease, as much as we can, the suffering of our fellow Lebanese and get back on the track of recovery.