Friday, May 16, 2008

Arab League talks seek to defuse Lebanon crisis
Hezbollah agrees to end blockade of airport; feuding factions to meet on power-sharing deal
May 16, 2008

Middle East Bureau

BEIRUT–Words finally replaced bullets here yesterday, as Lebanon's feuding factions once again prepared to settle their bitter differences in a semblance of peace – or at least to try.

"We want dialogue to save Lebanon's independence, integrity and institutions," Sheikh Naeem Qassem, deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, said in a televised address. "We want to work hand in hand in order to build a new Lebanon."

An Arab League delegation helped broker a truce yesterday between Lebanon's ruling coalition and several opposition factions, following nearly a week of intense and deadly armed combat between the two sides.

Under the deal, Hezbollah was to remove its blockade of Beirut's seaport and international air terminal, withdraw its gunmen from the streets, and agree not to use military force as a political tool in future.

Representatives of different Lebanese political and religious factions were expected to meet in Doha, Qatar, today for peace talks aimed at reaching agreement on power sharing and the drafting of a new electoral law.

Qassem said yesterday he welcomed a decision announced late Wednesday by Lebanon's pro-Western government to revoke a pair of security-related decisions that last week plunged the country into its worst spate of internal violence since the civil war that raged here from 1975 to 1990.

Yesterday, Lebanese information minister Ghazi Aridi said the government's change of heart should not be seen as caving in to armed pressure by Hezbollah and other opposition groups but as a reflection of its concern for the greater good of Lebanon.

"Since the government is greatly concerned with the higher interest, the government decided to approve the rescinding of the two decisions," he said in televised remarks.

But there was little doubt the pro-Western administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had indeed been forced to back down after Hezbollah militants overwhelmed the government's own paramilitary forces in several days of fierce street fighting in Beirut and other cities.

Armed clashes erupted in much of Beirut on May 7 after the ruling coalition said it was firing Gen. Wafiq Shouquair, chief of security at Beirut's international airport, because of alleged security breaches and also moving to dismantle Hezbollah's private telecommunications system.

Hezbollah denounced both measures as tantamount to acts of war and promptly sent hundreds of its well-trained fighters into the streets in a bloody show of force that left more than 80 dead and some 250 wounded.

As the Lebanese Armed Forces looked on without intervening, Hezbollah gunmen quickly overwhelmed a patchwork of government militias and soon controlled most of western Beirut.

Having made its point in blood, Hezbollah withdrew without mounting a direct challenge to the government's survival.

"Hezbollah stopped just at the entrance to the Grand Serail," a prominent Lebanese lawyer said, referring to the huge government palace in downtown Beirut.

Yesterday, the streets of the Lebanese capital presented an otherworldly study in contrasts, as urban sophisticates in the fashionable Hamra section of the city chatted on the patio of the Costa coffee bar or perused their laptop computers, as if oblivious to the tanks and soldiers still posted only a block away or at frequent intervals throughout the city.

Hezbollah said yesterday it would begin clearing the mounds of earth and other debris that have blocked many of Beirut's main access roads for more than a week, including the road to the international airport, closed for the past eight days.

Middle Eastern Airlines, Lebanon's flagship carrier, was expected to begin flying its planes back into Beirut late last night.

With a population of 4.2 million, Lebanon has been in a state of near political paralysis for the past 18 months because of bitter squabbling between the government and opposition.

The post of Lebanese president has been vacant since last November because the two sides cannot get together to vote for the position, even though they agree on the same candidate – Lebanese Armed Forces commander Gen. Michel Suleiman.

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