Lebanese parl't speaker urges immediate solution to volatile situation in Mount Lebanon

BEIRUT, July 1 (MENA) - Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri urged an immediate solution to the tumultuous situation in Mount Lebanon, saying that the flare-up there should not have happened at all.

Marwan Hamadeh, a parliament member representing the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and a former minister, blamed Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil for the volatile incidents that Mount Lebanon witnessed yesterday, accusing him of sowing sedition and stoking tension.

On Sunday, two aides to Lebanese Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh al Gharib, a member of the Druze ethnic group, were killed when his convoy came under fire as it passed through an area loyal to a rival Druze faction led by Walid Jumblatt, another Druze politican, in what the minister described as "an armed ambush and a clear assassination attempt".

The shooting took place after supporters of the PSP led by Jumblatt gathered to close roads and stop a visit to the area by foreign minister Bassil, a party colleague of Gharib. It is believed that the target of the assassination attempt was Bassil, but the attackers did not know the convoy belonged to Gharib.