Moussa Hosts Meeting Between Rival Lebanon Leaders

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa met with Lebanon”s warring leaders on Sunday in a fresh bid to end a 15-month-old political crisis that has left the country without a president for three months.

Moussa hosted a meeting bringing together former President Amin Gemayel and MP Saad Hariri from the ruling majority and Gen. Michel Aoun representing the Hizbullah-led opposition.

 

Moussa arrived in Beirut at 2:35 pm and went straight into a meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. No statements were made after the hour-long talks in Ain al-Tineh.

 

Moussa then met with Hariri in Qoreitem before going to the Grand Serail where he met with Premier Fouad Saniora.

 

The quartet talks under Moussa began at 8 pm at parliament building, and two and a half hours later there was no word from Nijmeh Square.

 

Behind closed doors talks between Moussa and Aoun at parliament building preceded the quartet meeting, the state-run National News Agency reported.

 

Moussa is in Beirut on yet another mission to defuse the political crisis, just two days before parliament is due to meet in a new effort to elect a president who will satisfy the rival factions.

 

Lebanon, grappling with its worst internal crisis since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990, has been without a president since late November and so far 14 attempts to hold a parliament vote to choose a new head of state have been cancelled.

 

Moussa has made several missions to try to resolve the feud but has so far been unsuccessful and the political tensions have on occasion boiled over into street clashes in Beirut, amid ominous warnings by some of renewed civil strife.