![Lebanese Druze leader and Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) chairman Walid Jumblatt speaks to the press after his meeting with the French President at the Elysee Palace in Paris on 30 June 2014. [DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-451505724.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1)
Lebanon’s leading Druze politician, Walid Jumblatt, yesterday called for an “international investigation” into the Beirut port explosion and said he had “no trust” in the government finding the truth.
“We have no trust at all in this ruling gang,” Jumblatt was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Demanding a “neutral government”, he stressed that his country would “disappear, if not for the help of foreign states and the Arab region.”
Jumblatt is a former member of the Lebanese parliament. His party has lawmakers in parliament but is not in the cabinet. He was appointed as the head of Lebanon’s Socialist Progressive in January with backing from the Hezbollah movement and its allies.
READ: Israel whitewashes its barbarism through offering help to Lebanon
On Tuesday Lebanon suffered massive blasts which could be heard as far away as Cyprus. More than 157 people were killed and 5,000 injured as a result of the explosion. The blasts were caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which had been stored unsafely in Beirut’s port for six years, according to President Michel Aoun.