Foreign Affairs Minister Gebran Bassil considered Friday the recent arrests in Greece, Germany and France of terror cells as an example of the link between immigration and terrorism, which some ‘traditional leaders’ refused to acknowledge.
“More stringent measures need to be applied in order to differentiate between economic migrants and those who are in need of humanitarian aid,” Bassil said.
In a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Timo Soini in Helsinki, the Lebanese FM stressed the need to cut off the funding of terrorist organizations, adding that military efforts must be exerted in a bid to uproot them.
Bassil concluded by saying that “the huge presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon poses an existential threat to the country.”