Moussa from Damascus: We haven”t Found a Solution but We Are Making Progress

 

Arab League chief Amr Moussa reported Friday progress in negotiations between feuding Lebanese factions over the deadlock to elect a new Lebanese president.

 

“We cannot say that we have found a solution to the Lebanese crisis but we have started to make progress,” Moussa told reporters after landing in Damascus. “We have taken measures that I hope will result in defusing the crisis.”

 

He left Beirut after holding a series of meetings since Wednesday with rival political leaders on ending a

standoff that has left the presidency vacant for almost two months.

 

He said there were encouraging signs toward ending the crisis and described as “positive” a meeting on Thursday between parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri and key opposition leader Michel Aoun.

 

Moussa is due to meet President Bashar al-Assad and Vice President Faruq al-Shara”a in Damascus on Saturday before returning to Lebanon on Sunday.

 

Syria, which held sway in Lebanon until it was forced to withdraw its troops from the country in 2005, has been accused by Washington and its allies of standing in the way of a solution to the current political crisis.

 

Damascus has leveled similar charges against the United States.

 

The three-point Arab League plan being touted by Moussa calls for the election of army chief General Michel Suleiman as president, a national unity government in which no one party has veto power and the adoption of a new electoral law.

 

Although the ruling coalition has given the Arab plan its full backing, Hezbollah insists that the opposition be granted a third of the seats in a new government so it can have veto power.

 

Lebanese lawmakers are scheduled to meet again on Monday to try to elect a president, but there are fears that parliamentary session will meet the same fate as the 12 previous ones and be postponed.

 

Picture: Amr Moussa, The Arab League”s Secretary-General speaks to media upon arrival on Friday, Jan. 18, 2008 at the Jdaidet checkpoint on the Syrian-Lebanese borders for talks with the Syrian officials on the Lebanese presidential crisis. Moussa told reporters that his talks in Beirut with the Lebanese officials were “practical”. He is expected to leave Damascus back to Lebanon to continue his efforts to bring the Lebanese closer to an agreement to elect a president.
(AP photo Bassem Tellawi).