President Michel Suleiman’s speech marking Lebanon’s 68th Army Day didn’t highlight any new stance and will only press foreign countries to neutralize the country from the ongoing turmoil in the region, Baabda Palace sources said on Friday.

“They are the same old stances that he has reiterated on different occasions,” sources close to him said in comments published in al-Joumhouria newspaper. The speech “might have included a clearer and stronger rhetoric but an occasion like that requires such statements… The Lebanese deserve to know these facts and if they would’ve listened before the situation would’ve been better locally,” the sources pointed out.

The sources stated that the president had previously urged Hizbullah to end its military intervention in Syria, in particular, after al-Qusayr battles. [Link]