EU envoy voices support for Lebanon's unity

The European Union Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton commended Tuesday Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Miqati's role in protecting the country's unity and cohesion amid heightened tension, the National News Agency reported. According to the NNA report, Ashton said "we commend Miqati's stance aiming at protecting Lebanon's cohesion and its unity amid these difficult circumstances". Ashton condemned the Beirut bombing that killed the Internal Security Forces Information Branch head Maj. General Wissam el Hassan, adding that the EU was concerned about Lebanon's stability. She added "some are definitely trying to divert the attention from the events in the region by stirring-up trouble in Lebnaon". Hassan was killed Friday in a huge explosion that rocked the Beirut area of Ashrafieh, which left at least two others dead and 126 wounded, in the first such attack in the Lebanese capital since 2008. According to the NNA, Ashton also met with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and expressed the union's rejection of political vacuum in the country. Ashton expressed the EU's support for Lebanon, its stability, independence and sovereignty. The EU envoy voiced support for national unity in Lebanon, as well as Suleiman's efforts to establish dialogue between the country's competing political factions. It added that the Lebanese president requested the EU's support to shoulder Lebanon in its efforts to provide the required help for the displaced Syrian nationals on its soil who had escaped the raging violence in their country.