Mitri to represent Lebanon at US talks despite objections
Acting Lebanese Foreign Minister Tarek Mitri headed to the United States on Saturday to take part in a US-sponsored Mideast conference to be held next week, his office said. Tuesday”s conference in the city of Annapolis, Maryland, aims to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks for the first time in seven years.
“Lebanon is taking part in the Annapolis meeting on the basis of the Arab consensus,” Mitri said before his departure.
On Friday, several Arab nations decided, during a meeting of foreign ministers in Egypt, to attend the peace conference.
The Arab League agreed to attend in the hope of promoting the creation of a Palestinian state and pushing for the return of occupied Syrian land.
“The Lebanese delegation goes to Annapolis, like other Arab teams, clinging to the Arab peace initiative and UN resolutions,” Mitri said, referring to an offer endorsed unanimously at a 2002 Beirut summit that promised Israel normal relations from all Arab states in return for its withdrawal from Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war.
Mitri, whose government assumed presidential powers Saturday after Parliament failed to elect a new president, left to attend the summit even though the opposition considers his Cabinet “illegitimate.”
“Lebanon will attend the Annapolis meeting in line with the Arab countries” joint decision” to take part in the conference due to open on Tuesday, Mitri said in a statement before he left.
Mitri has been acting foreign minister since the resignation of Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, along with five other Cabinet members, last year.
On Friday, Hizbullah rejected Lebanese participation in the Annapolis conference, which it called “a conspiracy” and “a step toward liquidating the Palestinian cause.”
The group added that any commitments made by the Lebanese delegation would be nonbinding because the current government is illegitimate.
Hizbullah led the resistance against Israeli troops until they withdrew from from most of South Lebanon in May
2000, ending 22 years of occupation. The group also fought against the Jewish state in Israel”s 2006 summer war with Lebanon.
Peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis have been stalled since 2000.
On Sunday, Hizbullah reiterated its criticism of the Annapolis talks, dismissing the event as a “show” to support Israel.
“He who looks at the preparations for the Annapolis conference finds that it has no gains for the Palestinians. It is a media-political show in favor of Israel,” Hizbullah”s second in command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, told a rally in Beirut on Sunday.
He added that the conference aimed at “propping up” some Palestinian leaders, a clear reference to President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost the Gaza Strip to Hamas hard-liners last summer, then deposed their elected prime minister.