Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has said that the global alliance to combat terrorism should not exclude any country and the battle against ISIS should be in line with international law.
“We affirmed to the U.S. and all the attendees during the Jeddah meeting that we are with them in this battle against ISIS, Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda, but any war on ISIS should respect the sovereignty of countries, international law and should be under the auspices of the United Nations,” Bassil told As-Safir in an article published Saturday.
“Any war should be coordinated with legitimate governments and government armies. More important, we should not exclude any country because that would create a defect in our universal confrontation.”
Representing Lebanon, Basil attended a regional conference to discuss ways to deal with ISIS, hosted by Saudi Arabia in Jeddah on Friday. Foreign ministers of many Arab countries including Qatar and Jordan as well as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also attended the conference.
While in Ankara to press Turkish officials to join the fight against extremist traffic and funding, Kerry said it was inappropriate for Iran to be part of the alliance given its support for the very government in Syria whose brutality helped fuel the rise of ISIS.
In response to a question, Bassil said that “Lebanon would not be part of an international axis against another international axis.”
“ Lebanon could not be absent from such a conference and its participation guarantees protection against ISIS,” he said.
“Along with political support, [participation in the conference] guarantees support for the Lebanese Army as well as benefiting from information on how to pursue such terrorists by drying up funds coming to them through Lebanon and eliminating these religious ideologies as well as lifting cover off every Islamist and ISIS member in the region and Lebanon.”
