Last update - 00:00 12/03/2007
EU chief Solana urges peaceful end to internal strife in Lebanon
By Reuters
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged Lebanese leaders on Monday to find a quick political solution to their four-month-old power struggle as he started a visit to the Middle East.
'It would be good to unblock the current political situation by the time of the summit,' Solana said, referring to a March 28 meeting of Arab leaders.
The highlight of Solana's three-nation tour is a meeting on Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, marking the latest step in the West's tentative rapprochement with Syria, long a key player in Lebanese politics.
"I will talk to President Assad frankly," Solana said in Beirut. "The independence of Lebanon is for us a very important element of stability in the region."
In Beirut, Solana met parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an opposition leader, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora before heading to Riyadh for talks with Saudi officials.
"I come out of the meeting more optimistic than when I went in," Solana told a news conference after meeting the Hezbollah-allied speaker, whom the EU sees as one of the keys to unlocking the current stalemate.
Rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, which support opposing factions in Lebanon, agreed earlier this month to fight the spread of sectarian strife across the region.
Lebanese leaders later held talks that raised hopes of a deal to end the power struggle between the anti-Syrian majority coalition and the opposition that includes Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran.
Fresh Talks
Shortly after Solana left Lebanon, Berri and majority leader Saad al-Hariri held another round of talks, the third in five days, to discuss a possible compromise to end the crisis.
The opposition quit government in November after Siniora and his allies, who are backed by Saudi Arabia, France and the United States, refused to give in to its demands for veto power in cabinet and early parliamentary elections.
A key demand of the ruling coalition is a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri.
The tribunal has yet to win parliamentary backing and the opposition fears it may be used as a political tool. A UN inquiry has implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials in the killing but Syria denies the charges.
Asked if he saw a deal to end the crisis soon, Siniora told a joint news conference with Solana: "No one can tell you if it will produce results in a matter of one or two days but it doesn't mean you should lose hope."
Syria has been in international diplomatic isolation for the past two years, the United States and France leading moves to ostracize it over its alleged role in Hariri's killing.
But with Damascus seen playing a key role in Lebanon, France last week ended its opposition to EU contacts. Separately, Syria took part in talks on Saturday with the United States and others aimed at finding ways to end the chaos in Iraq.
EU countries make up the bulk of an expanded 12,000-strong UN peace force deployed last year alongside Lebanese troops in south Lebanon after a war last year between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in which more than 1,300 people were killed.