Lebanese President accuses West of politicizing refugee crisis
BEIRUT, LEBANON (2:40 P.M.) - Lebanese President Michel Aoun stated that the issue of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is separate from the Syrian crisis political settlement, arguing that the West is "politicising" the refugee matter by conflating the two points.
"Western countries associate the [Syrian crisis] political settlement with solving the Syrian refugee issue in Lebanon. That's the main point of disagreement as we are not a side of the political conflict [in Syria]", he said during an interview in New York on Saturday.
The president went on to say that Lebanon is fighting terrorists on its side of the Lebanese-Syrian border and that since Beirut is not "at the heart of the conflict", they should not have to take on the consequences of the crisis and war.
"We face these consequences ourselves. This is not fair, especially having in mind the fact the Syrian government is encouraging refugees to come back to Syria. This is the problem we are solving right now. The west still does not have a clear understanding of what is going on, but Russia has. Russia launched an initiative to solve this problem", he said.
Speaking of the negotiations with Moscow on the refugee issue, Aoun mentioned two committees; the Russian one and the Lebanese one which are working on this problem.
Source: Ruptly
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Posted from AMN with SteemPress : https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/lebanese-president-accuses-west-of-politicizing-refugee-crisis/
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