Berri: Qassem's words 'did not reassure me'... and we quickly resolved the issue

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri confirms that communication between him and President Joseph Aoun has not been cut off, and considers that Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem should not have said what he said when he hinted at bringing down the government in the street, "His words did not reassure me and we quickly resolved the issue. The leaderships of the Amal Movement and the 'Party' held two meetings in the following two days to correct this position. In the Amal Movement, we do not say such words, it is not our language, and I am certainly not with him."

On the eve of the first meeting of the security track team stemming from the fourth round of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, which will be held today, Friday, Speaker Nabih Berri remains steadfast in affirming his rejection of both direct negotiations and the security track, and does not hesitate to say that he is not interested in them: "I do not know what will happen there and I do not want to know. What concerns me only is the displaced and addressing their tragedy."

Berri adds: "I am against direct negotiations. I was and will remain so because we go into them without carrying anything to negotiate with. Whoever sits at a negotiating table must have cards to present in order to be able to extract a gain, and to sit with an enemy with a minimum of parity and balance. What do we go there with? Nothing, not even a single card."

He also says: "That is the reason that has always driven me to call for indirect negotiations. I tried it twice with Israel. The first was in 2022 in the maritime border demarcation negotiations. Dozens of times the American mediator came to me and went to the Israeli, conveying conditions and ideas until we reached the maritime demarcation. In 2024, the same thing happened. Within two and a half months, the American mediator would come to me, go to Israel, then return until we reached a ceasefire."

He adds: "In both instances, we did not sit at one table with Israel. Pakistan today provides the clearest evidence of the importance of a mediator in resolving conflicts. It is not stronger than the Americans nor stronger than the Iranians, yet it has succeeded so far in mediating between them and managing their negotiations indirectly with their consent, and in undertaking the transmission of proposals, drafts, and agreement projects. The mediator, any mediator, has an interest in succeeding in his mission by extracting gains from both parties and imposing concessions on them. That is what we are not doing now; rather, we go into direct negotiations empty-handed. What do we expect, then?"