Moawad from Baabda: “Direct negotiations with Israel are not surrender, but responsibility, courage, and a national choice”

MP Michel Moawad, after meeting the President of the Republic at Baabda Palace:

Lebanon has a real opportunity to stop the war, as this is the only path for the state to regain its full sovereignty over all its territory.

We support the state’s decision for this war to be the last of wars, and for it to mark the starting point toward a future of peace, stability, and prosperity for our people, our children, our women, and our men.

We reaffirm our support for the state’s decision to implement the principle of “a demilitarized Beirut” as a first step, in implementation of the decisions taken by the government on August 5, August 7, and March 2, in preparation for achieving a Lebanon free of illegal weapons, so that legitimate arms alone remain in the hands of the state, as the sole guarantor of protecting the Lebanese.

Direct negotiations with Israel are not surrender, but rather responsibility, courage, and a national choice. If they were surrender, other regimes, such as the Iranian regime, would not have resorted to negotiations in defense of their interests, while Lebanon is denied its right to negotiate in order to save itself from destruction and collapse.

We affirm that we stand by His Excellency the President of the Republic and by the state; between the state and the militia, our choice is the state; between war and peace, our choice is peace; between stability and strife, our choice is stability; and between Lebanon and any other country or axis, our choice has been and will remain Lebanon.