Next Moussa mission “will focus on Cabinet shares”

 

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa”s next mission to Lebanon will likely focus on fixing the proportion of Cabinet ministers that rival camps will get within a new national unity government, sources close to Speaker Nabih Berri told The Daily Star on Tuesday. The sources said Berri and Moussa would hold a meeting in the first week of February. Moussa”s much-anticipated return to Lebanon will, many hope, pave the way for electing Lebanese Armed Forces head General Michel Suleiman as president by the February 11 deadline adopted by Arab foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday.

 

“We still believe in the Arab initiative, in the Arab League efforts and in [Moussa”s] efforts and we await his return,” Berri”s top aid Ali Hamdan said, adding that “contacts between the secretary general and the speaker were never interrupted and are continuing.”

 

Hamdan said the Arab foreign ministers” statement on Sunday stressed adherence to the original initiative in “text and spirit,” and placed agreement on the presidency, the national unity government and a new election in a comprehensive “basket” or “package deal.”

 

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation reported Tuesday that Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun had Advised Moussa in a telephone call with the Arab League chief “not to hurry back” to Lebanon amid the current tense security situation.

 

Saudi Arabia”s “advice” to the Lebanese is to elect Suleiman president as a consensus candidate on which everyone agrees “as quickly as possible,” according to Saudi Ambassador Abdel-Aziz Khoja who met with Premier Fouad Siniora at the Grand Serail on Tuesday.

 

Khoja said that Moussa was expected to return to Lebanon and meet with all parties concerned. “The secretary general has been delegated by the Arab foreign ministers to implement the Arab initiative and we are very confident, as he is,” he said. Khoja also warned of unspecified “security and political dangers” in Lebanon if the country remains without a president.

 

Asked if a Saudi rapprochement toward Syria could help resolve the presidential crisis  as Berri suggested, Khoja replied: “Saudi-Syrian relations have no bearing on Lebanese internal affairs [the political crisis] is a fundamentally internal matter that the Lebanese themselves need to resolve.”

 

Future Movement MP Ammar Houri, speaking to Voice of Lebanon radio Tuesday said the Arabs had done their duty calling on the Lebanese not to hinder the Arab initiative. “It is clear the Arab foreign ministers are giving their full support to Lebanon, but it is more important for the Lebanese to give their own cause such support.”

Following their weekly meeting on Tuesday, the Change and Reform bloc reaffirmed their support for “all efforts and initiatives” aimed at resolving the Lebanese crisis based on “objectivity, integrity and neutrality,” without favoring one Lebanese party at the other”s expense in compliance with regional or international dictates.
 

“The bloc therefore insists that all solutions and settlements be wholly Lebanese, reminding that the main pillar which ensures the continuation of the Lebanese [political] formula and Constitution is the principle of consociation democracy that ensures real partnership which is fair and balanced, that ensures one side does not win at the other”s expense,” a statement issued by the bloc said. It added that this formula is the real guarantee for communal coexistence and civil peace in Lebanon.

 

Arab diplomatic sources in Cairo told the daily Al-Hayat on Monday that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem maintained a tough stance during the foreign ministers meeting. He pushed for including words such as “consensus” and “agreement” in the final communique on Lebanon, in what the sources said was a bid to play for time.

 

The Syrian stance during the meeting, according to the sources, reflected the “dual role” that Syria aims to play: finding a text the Syrian side can accept in line with the other Arab governments while working to hinder a solution to the presidential crisis through its Lebanese allies.

 

The sources lamented the failure of the meeting to clarify or interpret the initiative or to identify the party that was hindering agreement.

 

One source also reported that Al-Manar television”s Damascus correspondent had attended the ministers” private deliberations, posing as a member of the Syrian delegation. Moussa had asked for his ID and his position in the delegation and no one from the Syrian delegation answered, the source said.

 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit called on all Lebanese factions to prevent a deterioration in the

security situation, warning of the risk that confrontations could take on a sectarian nature that would threaten civil peace.

 

Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblatt accused the West of abandoning Lebanon, adding that “dictators” like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad should be toppled. “The two dictators ought to be overthrown,” Jumblatt said in an interview with the French news daily Le Figaro.

 

Jumblatt said Syria and Iran want to create a void in the country so they can impose their control over Lebanon. He vowed that while “we might not be able to stop them,” the Lebanese will not give up.

 

Jumblatt pointed a finger at Hizbullah for involvement in the series of car bomb attacks that have plagued Lebanon recently. “I accuse Hizbullah directly … when you are capable of possessing rockets with a range of 300 kilometers, you own everything,” he told the French paper, adding that Hizbullah assisted Syrian intelligence.

 

In a separate interview with Russian news agency Novosti, Jumblatt said it was impossible for “democratic Lebanon” to coexist with “Syria”s dictatorship.” Jumblatt is on a visit to Moscow where he will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.