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Ruling Lebanon coalition challenges Hezbollah
Lebanon's U.S.-backed ruling coalition challenged their Hezbollah-led rivals yesterday, demanding that top-level talks in Qatar on ending Lebanon's 18-month political crisis - which turned violent a week ago - also tackle the issue of Hezbollah's weapons. However, the Hezbollah side insisted the group's arsenal not be touched, according to Lebanese media reports on the first day of the negotiations in the Qatari capital. The Doha-hosted meeting between the Lebanese factions was arranged under an Arab League-mediated deal to end Lebanon's worst violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. Following Arab mediation, the feuding sides flew to Qatar on Friday, after agreeing that the talks would lead to the election of compromise candidate Army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman as Lebanese president. Lebanon's official National News Agency said the talks became tense when parliament majority leader Saad Hariri, a Sunni, and hardline pro-government Christian politician Samir Geagea brought up the issue of Hezbollah's weapons. The private LBC Television said the feuding sides engaged in heated discussions over the subject, which took up most of the morning session. This indicated that Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's side was looking for guarantees in Qatar that Hezbollah won't again take to the streets as it did when it overrun Muslim Sunni west Beirut neighborhoods last week. Geagea had warned Hezbollah that Doha talks would fail if the Shiite Islamist group sticks to keeping its weapons. We can no longer accept Hezbollah as it is, he told the Qatari Al-Jazeera TV. The eruption last week was triggered by government measures to rein in Hezbollah, whose fighters then responded by taking up arms. The clashes left 67 people dead and over 200 wounded. The standoff has paralyzed Lebanon politically, and left it without a president since pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud's term ended last November. It started in Nov. 2006, when six Hezbollah ministers and their allies resigned from the Cabinet because it would not give them veto power on government decisions. Lawmaker Mohammed Raad, who heads Hezbollah's delegation in Qatar, defended the group's keeping its arsenal, saying the weapons were meant to fight against Israel and must not be touched, according to LBC. Posted by: Fred 2008-05-18 |
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