 The Secretary-General of the League of Arab States Amr Moussa held a press conference after concluding the meetings of the Arab delegation with the Lebanese leaders. Moussa said the most important issues we discussed were the formation of a government of national unity, creating presidential election climate, national security and ending current tense situation in the country .
| Governments of national unity are usually deadlocked from the moment of their inception. Jerry hasn't noticed this in all the years he's been diplomatting. |
| Governments of national unity serve better chow on account no one gets offended and starts shootin'... |
| 'creating presidential election climate' - man, everyone's trying to get in on the climate change gig. |
| It'll get very hot, then it'll get very cold. |
Moussa has stressed that the Lebanese have agreed on these issues, and this task has opened a number of perspectives, and a national consensus on resuming the dialogue.
| That sentence is the semantic equivalent of Diet Coke. |
| Diet Coke has more integrity. |
 The Lebanese people want to resolve these issues on their own and without any foreign intervention. There is a desire amongst the Lebanese to get out from the dark tunnel. There was progress in the methodical discussions that we had and there were agreements in principal on some issues and almost reached agreements on pother issues . What is happening in Lebanon concerns the Arab world we at the Arab league feel it is our responsibility to get Lebanon out of the dark tunnel.
| Can somebody open a window? |
We would have liked to finish this agreement today, in order to end the protests and the political bickering . But our delegation will have to leave today , but will remain ready to return . we feel encouraged even though the mission did not conclude an agreement .
| As far as I know, Amr hasn't actually accomplished anything of substance since he split with Dean Martin. |
In response to some questions, Moussa said : • There is a written agreement, but requires additional time
• Continuing this same framework for an agreement requires some waiting and requires also the removal of some obstacles
• .There were many efforts, and the Arab delegation makes policy decisions , but we do not interfere in nor involve ourselves in the details
• During our discussions with Speaker Berri he raised some issues , and will continue to communicate with him to reach a solution for these issues.
• During our discussions with Sheikh Saad al-Hariri we found him extremely understanding and did not have any preconditions to restart the national dialogue.
• There exists an opportunity for a serious dialogue as matters stand today . The Lebanese should start the dialogue soon on the 3 issues we mentioned earlier : The government, the presidency & national security.
• Will be visiting Syria soon.
• We will come back when everybody is ready to work without obstacles.
• We hope and urge that everyone to refrain from escalation of the current tension.
• I hope that circumstances will allow us to return to Lebanon and everybody will be ready to end the current conflict. Moussa met last night with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, afterwards he visited with parliament majority leader Saad Hariri . Political sources are saying that while the anti-Syrian majority is not setting any preconditions for the national dialogue, the pro-Syrian Hezbollah led opposition is insisting on forming a government of national unity as a precondition to any dialogue.
| "Do as we say first. Then we can talk." |
The parliament majority has reported that the position of the opposition has stiffened yesterday on orders received from Syria. Social Affairs Minister Nayla Moawad accused the opposition of thwarting Arab league mediation effort by demanding a national unity government before talks aimed at ending the crisis. "Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who speaks for the opposition, made a complete about face on Thursday evening," she said. "While he accepted Amr Mussa's proposal for a resumption of dialogue, he made it conditional on the formation of a national unity government. This hardening of the opposition's position is because of last-minute orders from Syria. Under such conditions the chances of the Arab mediation mission succeeding are diminished and impasse looms." |