Lebanon seeks Saudi help in reconciliation efforts

Apr 4, 2007, 20:15 GMT

Beirut - Lebanon's Shiite House Speaker Nabih Berri said late Wednesday that he will ask Saudi Arabia to host a Lebanese reconciliation conference to solve the ongoing political crisis in the country.

'I will send on Monday a letter to the Saudi officials to host a meeting for the Lebanese rival leaders to try to achieve a reconciliation,' Berri said on a local television programme.

Berri, who expressed pessimism in solving the current political crisis, the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, stressed that 'only a dialogue would solve such a crisis, but with the help of countries like Saudi Arabia.'

Berri's call for Saudi Arabia's intervention came after the parliament's anti-Syrian majority called on the UN to go ahead with an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, after the government failed to win opposition support for its creation and Berri refused to convene a session to approve the draft to establish such a court.

The anti-Syrian coalition called on the UN Tuesday to take 'alternative measures' to approve the tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of Hariri.

The move has deepened differences between the pro and anti-Syrian camps, which has led to sectarian violence in recent months that has killed scores of people.

According to Lebanese observers, the move by the majority was aimed at putting pressure on the Hezbollah-led opposition to change course.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah group warned that a UN-imposed tribunal will be 'a court against Lebanon and not to try the killers of Premier Hariri.'

Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority and son of the slain premier, presented a memorandum to Geir Pederson, the UN representative in Lebanon, demanding UN action to establish the tribunal.

Signed by 70 of parliament's 128 members, the memorandum seeks UN action in line with a draft agreement signed in 2006 between the government and the United Nations.

Hariri and his supporters have demanded that the opposition endorse the creation of a 'tribunal with an international character' that includes Lebanese and foreign judges. Hezbollah and its allies have declined. They want limits to the court's mandate.

The pro-Syrian opposition led by Hezbollah and backed by Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Berri, consider the Western-backed government of Fouad Seniora 'illegitimate' after all Shiite ministers resigned last November.

The country has since been divided as the opposition insists on forming a national unity government - a demand rejected by the ruling anti-Syrian majority.

The government has accused the opposition of acting under the orders of their Syrian allies to block the creation of an international tribunal.

Hariri's killing triggered domestic and international protests which forced Syria, Lebanon's one-time powerbroker, to end 30 years of military presence and political domination of its neighbour in April 2005.

Damascus has vehemently denied any involvement in Hariri's death, but an ongoing UN probe has implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials in the assassination.