NNA - Speaker of the House, Nabih Berri, lashed out Thursday at the delay in forming Lebanon's new government as a purposed attempt to drag the country into a very dangerous void, stressing an effective Cabinet is what is sought.
"We in Lebanon are looking for a government of actions," he said, during the celebration of Imam Moussa Sadr Foundation's Golden Jubilee at UNESCO where he represented President of the Republic Michel Sleiman.
"Imam Sadr taught us partnership and coexistence. He taught us that Lebanon is the nation of mankind, civilization's dialogue, and religions' rapprochement," Berri said, calling on Libyan officials to press for unveiling the Imam's fate.
Sadr, the vanished Imam, went missing on August 31, 1978, alongside his comrades Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine, in Libya, where they'd been in an effort to end the Lebanese civil war.
After the collapse of Moammar Gadhafi's regime in 2011, the dossier of the vanished Imam emerged again, and so did the hope of unearthing his fate.
In a televised speech earlier this week, Hezbollah's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reminded that Gadhafi-era intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, was arrested.
That day, the speech drew the rebuke of March 14 camp showing no appetite for a proposed Cabinet lineup approved by Hezbollah and its allies.
Nasrallah has said that it was March 14 camp that was derailing the work of the state institutions.
"Our central goal is to bridge the gap caused by the void in powers and the continuous stagnation," Berri said.
"I still bet on dialogue," he corroborated, renewing his cleaving to what he termed as "the diamond trinity," in reference to the Resistance-Army-People formula.
Berri did not fail to recall Israeli threats of the Lebanese strategic offshore oil resources, urging the state to mobilize to protect them.
He also warned of the booming terrorism.
Turning to Tripoli, the Speaker maintained that the northern city was the second capital of Lebanon. "We shall not accept exposing people and properties in Tripoli to the mercy of small wars."
On the regional and international scales, Berri highlighted the necessity of Geneva II talks as a mainstay to the much-sought political solution to Syria's crisis.
He also underlined the necessity to build trust on the level of the Arab-Iranian ties.
Representatives of outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rahi, vice Head of the Higher Shiite Council Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan, a panel of ministers, security chiefs, politicians, diplomats, and the Director of the state-run National News Agency, Laure Sleiman Saab, attended the event.
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