Lebanon's Syrian-backed opposition on Wednesday warned against plans for a U.N. resolution to set up an international court over the 2005 killing of former Premier Rafik Hariri. Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a member of the Hezbollah-led opposition, accused the anti-Syrian majority in parliament of sabotaging efforts to reach an accord in Beirut to establish the court without foreign interference.He said in a meeting with U.S. Middle East envoy David Welch he had been working for months to clinch a national consensus on the tribunal. "The problem is not the tribunal but the creation of a government of national unity," a key demand of the opposition whose six ministers quit the Western-backed cabinet last November, said Berri.
With the political crisis now six months old, the United States said on Tuesday it expects to circulate a draft resolution in the UN Security Council this week to create the court. "We expect to introduce a resolution before the end of this week," U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters in New York, adding it was in response to a request from Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government.