New Lebanon govt manifesto ready on Friday
A manifesto that will allow the new Lebanon government to take office will be ready on Friday, Information Minister Tareq Mitri said on Thursday.
"The meeting tomorrow will be the last and we will submit the declaration of the policy statement to the government so it can be ratified as soon as possible," Mitri told journalists.
A new national unity cabinet was formed two weeks ago, but negotiations on a manifesto have been hampered by disputes on the issue of weapons held by Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite Muslim political movement and militia.
Mitri, on a joint committee of anti-Syrian parliamentary majority ministers and Syria- and Iran-backed ministers, was speaking after the cabinet met for the 13th time in nearly three weeks to try to thrash out the policy statement.
He added that ministers had expressed "reservations about some of the wording" in the proposed statement, but that the committee would resolve any differences by Friday.
The new government of national unity will take office only after a parliamentary vote of confidence on the policy statement.
Mitri did not elaborate on how it addresses the issue of Hezbollah weapons.
The Hezbollah-led opposition insists on the "right to resist" Israel, while the ruling bloc, supported by the West and most Arab states, insists that only the state can make decisions of war and peace.
The controversy over Hezbollah”s weapons intensified after its militants captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in July 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.
It boiled to the surface again when Hezbollah led an armed takeover of large swathes of predominantly Sunni west Beirut in fierce fighting in May that left 65 people dead and sparked fears of a return to all-out civil war.
The new cabinet, in which the opposition has the right of veto, was formed on July 11 after weeks of bickering despite a May power-sharing agreement struck in Qatar that ended a protracted political dispute.
The Western-backed parliamentary majority has 16 cabinet seats, and the opposition 11, including the post of labour minister held by a Hezbollah MP, while three are held by nominees of President Michel Sleiman who is considered to be neutral.
Picture: A manifesto that will allow the new Lebanon government to take office will be ready on Friday, Information Minister Tareq Mitri, seen here in Fabruary 2008, said on Thursday.
(AFP/File/John Thys)