Aoun also called on political leaders to rise to the challenge of their responsibility.
BEIRUT: Lebanon plunged deeper into crisis Tuesday amid an escalating row between President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
The row broke out after a video in which Aoun’s son-in-law and FPM leader, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, calls Berri a “thug” was leaked on Sunday.
The leaked video sparked outrage among supporters of Berri’s Amal Movement who took to the streets on Monday to denounce Bassil’s remarks, blocking roads and burning tires across Lebanon and the surroundings of the FPM’s headquarters in Sin el-Fil, east of Beirut.
Aoun on Tuesday blamed the unrest on both parties, saying “what happened on the ground is a huge mistake that was built on a mistake.”
The row broke out after a video in which Aoun’s son-in-law and FPM leader, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, calls Berri a “thug” was leaked on Sunday.
The leaked video sparked outrage among supporters of Berri’s Amal Movement who took to the streets on Monday to denounce Bassil’s remarks, blocking roads and burning tires across Lebanon and the surroundings of the FPM’s headquarters in Sin el-Fil, east of Beirut.
Aoun on Tuesday blamed the unrest on both parties, saying “what happened on the ground is a huge mistake that was built on a mistake.”
In a statement released by his office, Aoun said he forgives all those who verbally assaulted him and his family, urging all parties to “follow suit and forgive one another.”
Aoun also called on political leaders to rise to the challenge of their responsibility.
Sources close to Berri made no comment on Aoun’s statement. A few hours later, Berri’s supporters once again took to the streets, staging protests and burning tires across Lebanon.
Earlier in the day, sources close to the speaker demanded a public apology from Bassil, whose party ruled out such an apology.
After a meeting of the FPM’s parliamentary bloc that shortly followed Aoun’s statement, MP Ibrahim Kanaan told reporters that his party has turned the page, signaling that Bassil didn’t intend to apologize.
Kanaan added that Bassil had already sought to contain the situation when he expressed his regret in remarks published by the pro-Hezbollah daily Al-Akhbar on Monday.
The Shiite militant group Hezbollah, an ally of both Aoun and Berri, had condemned Bassil’s remarks and expressed solidarity with the parliament speaker.
Earlier in the day MP Anwar Al-Khalil, a member of Berri’s parliamentary bloc, demanded more than just an apology, calling on Bassil to resign from the Cabinet.