President Michel Sleiman dismissed on Tuesday media reports that his visit to Syria is scheduled for Saturday. "The date of the president”s visit to Syria will be determined once the ministerial statement is drafted and approved," Sleiman”s media office said in a statement.
Information Minister Tareq Mitri said Tuesday the committee charged with drafting the ministerial statement had completed about 70 percent of its task.
Mitri said the committee was not used to press leakages after every meeting and "agreed to remain silent until we finish our discussions in order to succeed and progress and I will not break the rule."
After a fifth meeting of the committee at the Grand Serail Tuesday chaired by Premier Fouad Siniora, Mitri said that "some issues are still pending, and discussion is ongoing."
Yet the minister refused to go into details on the committee”s deliberations, saying only that "talks covered all issues without exception."
Mitri added that the committee discussed all major political issues, and the position of each group was now clear. "I think that the Lebanese public opinion is looking for a straight and honest ministerial statement, which cannot include any contradictory explanations and must express the consensus of the government," he said.
Mitri added that the committee”s mission was "quite hard," but stressed that his colleagues and himself were "working seriously."
In an interview with Kuwaiti daily Awan on Tuesday Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh said Sleiman would invite his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad to visit Lebanon.
Sleiman, according to Salloukh, would extend the invitation to Assad during their forthcoming meeting in Damascus.
The foreign minister said the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council would probably meet later in the summer to ratify whatever Assad and Sleiman agree on, including a revision of Lebanese-Syrian bilateral treaties.
Meanwhile, Sleiman met on Tuesday with a delegation from the Lebanese community in Paraguay, who arrived in Lebanon to congratulate him on his election and the formation of a national unity government.
During the meeting, Sleiman said the world was in need of the Lebanese model of "diversity, tolerance and coexistence," especially after the outbreak of confessional struggles in the region.
"Lebanon is considered an example of cooperation between all sects and a symbol of continuity of all religions and communities, he added.
"Israel”s aim is to tarnish the Lebanese image in the world by describing it as a terrorist country to ensure that coexistence is impossible among different confessions in the same society," Sleiman said.
He also added that this was the excuse given by Israel to "expel and oppress" Palestinians, whereas Lebanon embodies an adverse example where coexistence and diversity survive."
He stressed the need to convey a positive image of Lebanon through adopting "a nationalistic rhetoric" and respecting "the basics of true nationalism."
Sleiman also underlined the need to grant young Lebanese emigrants "their right to elect their representatives by including such a mandatory clause in any adopted electoral law."
The president also discussed the need to formalize the statuses of Lebanese immigrants by providing them with identification cards and documented proof of their citizenship.
He also commented on the issue of terror, saying it did not "in any way reflect the true essence of Islam, Muslims, and Arabs."
"We will fight terrorism because it affects the Lebanese example of diversity and pluralism," he added.