Pope Benedict meets Lebanese president

Oct 31, 2008, 13:40 GMT

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI met Friday with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and expressed hope for the safeguard of Lebanon's 'peculiar identity', the Vatican said.

Talks between Benedict and Suleiman, the Maronite Christian president of the majority Muslim nation, lasted for 25 minutes with St Peter's Square closed off to the public amid tight security.

Benedict conveyed his 'appreciation for the efforts' made by Lebanese leaders to restore their Middle East nation along 'the rails of a normal political dialectic,' the Vatican said in a statement.

Suleiman took office in May following intense wrangling between Lebanon's political and religious factions.

Benedict and Suleiman also exchanged gifts, with the Lebanese president presenting the pontiff with a book, written in Arabic, on a 1736 synod of the Maronite Church - an Oriental rite church which recognizes the primacy of the Roman Catholic pope.

Benedict, for his part, gave the Lebanese president a medallion commemorating his papacy.

Lebanon's political system rests on a power-sharing agreement between the main religious groups that assigns the country's presidency to a Maronite, the position of prime minister to a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of Parliament post to a Shiite Muslm.