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Lebanese leaders reach accord
 Lebanese political leaders meeting to quell bitter internal disputes reached an accord Tuesday on normalising fraught relations with Syria, parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri, said. But Berri said two key issues remained unresolved the political future of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and disarmament of Shiite fundamentalist movement Hizbollah and that negotiations would resume on March 22.
| I thought Emile would be gone by the end of this month. Knobby must be putting up a hell of a fight... |
Besides agreement on Syria, Berri said all 14 participants agreed on "not allowing any armed Palestinian presence outside (refugee) camps and on the "Lebanese" character of the Shebaa Farms, a hotly contested border area currently occupied by Israel.
| If you don't let the Paleos have any arms inside the camps, they won't have any outside. Just a suggestion, mind you... |
The anti-Syrian majority in parliament has repeatedly called for the embattled Lahoud to step down since the killing in February 2005 of his political rival and former premier Rafiq Hariri in a bomb blast blamed on Damascus. On Hizbollah, Berri said: "The resistance will keep its weapons until the liberation of every inch of Lebanese territory."
| So get Syria to agree that's Shebaa's Lebanese, rather than Syrian. Then ask the Israelis to give it back. |
Pro-and anti-Syrian politicians at the talks agreed on the necessity of developing relations with Syria and of "correcting the errors of the past," Berri said, without elaborating.
| That's probably because all parties have differing interpretations of what those errors might have been... |
"Participants don't want Syria to be a threat to Lebanon's security and vice-versa.
| I can't recall that Leb, even in its Phoenician heyday, has ever been a threat to Syria. |
"They... demand the application of the principle of mutual non-interference in internal affairs," he said. A participant who requested anonymity said the agreement was based on the 1989 Taef accords that ended Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war "which stipulates the establishment of normal and healthy relations" between the two neighbours. "Participants want relations between Lebanon and Syria to be as equals, based on the establishment of diplomatic relations and embassies and demarcating Lebanese-Syrian frontiers," Berri said.
Posted by: Fred 2006-03-15 |
