"Lebanon First"... Future Movement responds to Velayati and stresses: Arms must be exclusively in the hands of the state, full stop

The following statement was issued by the Future Movement:

"For Mr. Ali Akbar Velayati, one of the senior advisers to the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to set out to disparage the martyred Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his political movement means that the martyred leader was right, and that we, behind him, were and will remain right, under the leadership of President سعد الحريري, in the movement of Lebanese and Arab national moderation that refused to be dragged into projects of sedition and the repeated Iranian attempts to confiscate the Lebanese decision-making process and spread chaos in Arab societies."

It continued: "Velayati has exposed the spirit of hatred harbored within the Iranian leadership toward the Arab states, toward the Hariri movement, and toward Lebanon, which is paying from its land, its sovereignty, and the blood of its sons the heavy price of Iranian interference in its affairs and the abduction of a fundamental component of its national fabric in the service of agendas that dragged our country into futile wars. Velayati also reflected the Iranian leadership’s displeasure at the Lebanese state’s recovery of its sovereign decision in negotiations, and its insistence on dealing with Lebanon through the logic of tutelage, rejected by the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, who struggled and paid the dearest price to free Lebanon from the Iranian grip and put an end to attempts to distort Lebanon’s history and its symbols."

The statement concluded: "On this occasion, we affirm that the Hariri movement remains committed to its national and Arab constants, on the right side of history, under the banner of ‘Lebanon First,’ beginning with the exclusivity of arms in the hands of the state alone, the extension of its authority over all its territory, and its sole monopoly over the decision of war and peace, full stop."