LF head Samir Geagea. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has taken exception to remarks made by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who Friday called on Lebanon's caretaker cabinet to normalize relations with Syria and implied that Banque Du Liban (BDL) deputy governor Wassim Mansouri — whose family is from the Shiite community — would succeed Riad Salameh, whose term ends in July.
"A cabinet in charge of current affairs has no right to make appointments or to meet, except for urgent matters," the LF leader said, "but since the end of the BDL governor's term is approaching, and he is being prosecuted [in several local and international investigations], it is urgent that cabinet appoints a new governor."
Geagea said "any change in the central bank can improve the situation of any Lebanese,” adding that, the "public administration can do day-t0-day business, but the central bank cannot. It must fully exercise its role."
In his speech Friday, Nasrallah said that while the presidential vacancy lasts, there can be no extension of Riad Salameh’s mandate, nor the official appointment of a successor. Such an appointment was needed, he suggested, since — like the head of General Security — the current deputy governor is the central bank's interim head.
Amal and Hezbollah have denied that they wanted the interim head of BDL to be affiliated to one of the parties. Nasrallah's statement comes after General Elias Baissari, a Maronite, was appointed interim head of the General Security, succeeding General Abbas Ibrahim, a Shiite, who had reached retirement age in early March. In Lebanon's system of political confessional, administrative positions are allotted on a confessional basis.
Syria and the repatriation of refugees
Geagea also criticized Hezbollah's call that the caretaker cabinet normalize relations between Lebanon and Syria, and form a ministerial and security delegation that would discuss the repatriation of Syrian refugees with Damascus.
"Hassan Nasrallah does not take into consideration the facts, and proposes [this] solution ... in order to legitimize the Assad regime," Geagea said. "We have tried [negotiating with the Syrian regime] regarding the refugees at several levels, including the governmental level, but it has not produced any results.”
Last August, caretaker Minister of Displaced Persons Issam Charafeddine went to Damascus to discuss a repatriation plan which, several months later, has borne no fruit.
For the LF head, "the issue of refugees is a sovereign Lebanese decision."
Syrians living in Lebanon "must be classified according to those who can stay in Lebanon and those who must be repatriated. It is the responsibility of the cabinet, of which Hezbollah is a part, to take the decision of their repatriation," he continued.
Geagea said that President "Bashar al-Assad does not want the repatriation of Syrian refugees for strategic, demographic and political reasons.”