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Hezbollah calls for national unity govt.

Hezbollah has called on new Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to form a national unity government while former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s supporters have resorted to violence.

Hezbollah and its allies in the March 8 Alliance, which includes Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement, will try to form a national unity government, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said.

“We don’t seek to (exclude) anyone,” Nasrallah stated in a televised speech late on Monday night, on the eve of parliamentary talks between Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and lawmakers from the 128-seat parliament.

“The Lebanese people have a real chance to unite without winners or losers,” Nasrallah said on Tuesday.

The government headed by Saad Hariri of the March 14 Alliance collapsed on January 12 over a United Nations inquiry into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Saad’s father, when the March 8 Alliance ministers resigned from the cabinet, saying the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was part of a US-Israeli plot to target the group.

Nasrallah thanked Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who said last week he would support Hezbollah and its allies in the parliamentary talks to choose a new premier. Jumblatt was once a key ally of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

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