BEIRUT - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Sunday that there can be no peace settlement in the troubled Middle East unless a solution
is found first to Lebanon's political crisis.

Prodi spoke after holding talks with rival Lebanese political leaders Sunday as part of a one-day trip that also took him to southern Lebanon to inspect Italian peacekeepers stationed there.

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"This is not a problem concerning Lebanon. It's a problem concerning all the Middle East situation," Prodi told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

"If there is not a solution to the Lebanese problem, there will be no solution to the other problems in the Middle East," he said in English.

Prodi, on his second visit to Beirut in two months, said Italy supported the steps taken by the Lebanese government to maintain peace and preserve the country's unity and independence.

Prodi's visit came as growing political and sectarian tensions among rival Lebanese factions are threatening to tear the country apart. It also came a day after Arab League chief Amr Moussa said that his efforts to reach a solution to Lebanon's political crisis have not succeeded but did not rule out future negotiations among feuding parties.

Tensions among rival groups erupted when six pro-Hezbollah Cabinet ministers resigned last month after Siniora rejected their demand for a new national unity government.

Hezbollah's supporters have been staging massive protests and ongoing sit-ins in downtown Beirut, a few meters from Siniora's office, as part of their effort to force him to resign, but the Western-backed premier has refused to step down.

The Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies are demanding a
national unity government which would give them veto power over major
government decisions.

However, Siniora and his anti-Syrian supporters reject Hezbollah's demands, calling the campaign and the ongoing protests since December 1 a Syria-backed coup.

Siniora has been living at his office complex in central Beirut amid a tight security cordon near the thousands of Hezbollah supporters and allies camping nearby.

Prodi, who last visited Beirut in October, also met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, saying his talks were "constructive."

"We discussed the current situation and the future in Lebanon and the area. ... I expressed our strong support for Lebanon's sovereignty and independence, and UNIFIL's commitment to peace in the region," the official National News Agency quoted Prodi as saying.

Siniora, whose government is backed by the United States and several Western countries, called Prodi "a great friend of Lebanon," saying his visit was to show support for "Lebanon's legitimate government like the overwhelming majority of world states, especially in the Arab world."

Apparently referring to the Hezbollah-led opposition's plan to escalate their protests after the New Year's holiday, Siniora said he was ready for talks with his opponents, stressing that "sit-ins, strikes and escalation, including the blocking of the airport road, will not solve anything."

Hezbollah and its Syrian-backed allies have warned that they would press for early parliamentary elections after the New Year's holiday if the Arab League mediation fails to meet the opposition's demand for a national unity government that would give them effective veto power on key decisions.

Prodi later flew by helicopter to Tibnine, a town 15 kilometers north of the Israeli border, where the Italian contingent of the UNpeacekeeping force is deployed. He reviewed an honor guard, thanked troops for their service and had lunch with military commanders.

With 2,500 troops, Rome is the leading contributor to the UN peacekeeping
force, known as UNIFIL, monitoring the truce that ended a monthlong war
between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on August 14.

Around 10,000 UNIFIL troops patrol a buffer zone in southern Lebanon alongside an estimated 17,000 Lebanese soldiers. The force is mandated to go up to a maximum of 15,000.

Italy is due to take over the command of UNIFIL from France in February.