Prime Minister Saad Hariri has said that the recent upheaval in the country “was a lesson for everyone, that loud rhetoric does not lead to a solution but creates political tension.” It was also a lesson that “the use of weapons to solve political disputes will only lead to strife,” Hariri said on Friday in a speech at a Future Movement ceremony in Beirut. “Closing roads and burning tires does not lead to any solution,” the PM stated. “Even those who carry weapons inside Lebanon are now afraid of it,” he stressed. Hariri told his supporters that his slain father former PM Rafik Hariri and himself had been the target of insults much worse than those currently effecting the country. “But we have always thought that the country’s dignity is more important than the dignity of people and parties, and that our country deserves concessions from our part,” he said. “The voice of reason and wisdom prevailed yesterday (Thursday) over the voice of motorcycles, stopping a problem that could have taken the country to another level,” Hariri added. President Michel Aoun spoke with Speaker Nabih Berri by telephone Thursday, easing heightened tensions following offensive remarks made by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil against the speaker. The remarks triggered a wave of street protests by Berri’s supporters from Amal Movement who blocked main roads in Beirut and set fire to tires and to pictures of Aoun and Bassil, who is the president’s son-in-law and heads his Free Patriotic Movement.