BEIRUT - At yesterday’s banquet honoring visiting Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri said that, “Lebanon and Armenia have many things in common, and Lebanon has always been a second home to the Armenians.”

In response, the Armenian president said that “Lebanese-Armenian relations are ones of friendship because the two countries are related to one another.”

“We will always remember the support that the Lebanese people provided to the Armenians,” Sargsyan noted.

Regarding regional issues, Berri warned that the entire region is threatened by fragmentation and division.

“The entire region is threatened by fragmentation and division and is witnessing ethnic and factional explosions,” Berri said on Tuesday.

Commenting on the Arab Spring, Sargsyan said that the Arab world is entering a “complicated transitional phase”, adding that Armenia is worried about the Syrian people’s fate.

He reiterated his country’s call for a “cessation of the blood shedding” in Syria.

The lunch banquet was attended by several March 14 MPs, PM Najib Mikati, FPM leader Michel Aoun and Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel Karim Ali.