Key US senator meets Lebanese leaders
Former US Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry held talks with Lebanese leaders on Wednesday on the latest leg of a regional tour.
Kerry met Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and was also to meet President Michel Sleiman and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.
On the agenda of the talks is Lebanon”s June 7 parliamentary elections as well as relations between the two countries after President Barack Obama took office last month.
Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is on a regional tour that will also take him to Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Syria. He arrived in Beirut from Jordan where he met King Abdullah II.
The tour comes as the Obama administration works to convince the Arab world that it will ramp up US involvement in the Middle East peace process.
Kerry was to head to Jerusalem after his stop in Beirut.