Future-Hezbollah talks to tackle presidency

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Future-Hezbollah talks to tackle presidency
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/Jan. 15, 2015

BEIRUT: The next round of talks between the Future Movement and Hezbollah will address the issue of the presidential election, Future MPs said Wednesday, as ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri underlined the importance of talks among rival factions. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem ruled out the possibility of electing a new president soon, citing “complications” in the crisis that has left Lebanon without a head of state for nearly eight months.

However, Speaker Nabih Berri expressed hope that the launching of dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement last month would help facilitate the election of a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure ended on May 25. “This relatively positive climate in Lebanon is the result of dialogue,” Berri was quoted by MPs during his weekly meeting with lawmakers at his residence in Ain al-Tineh.

Berri, according to the MPs, hoped the Future-Hezbollah talks would make “more achievements and steps at all levels, at the forefront of which is the presidential election issue.”
For his part, Hariri, in a message to Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, underscored the need for the feuding parties to engage in dialogue, in a clear allusion to the talks between his Future Movement and Hezbollah and attempts to arrange a meeting between Aoun and his arch Christian rival, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea.

The message was delivered to Aoun by Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, a leading member of the Future Movement. “We agreed dialogue is useful for all the Lebanese and is a safety base for them provided there is no stubbornness by any party,” Machnouk said after meeting Aoun at the latter’s residence in Rabieh, north of Beirut. “Gen. Michel Aoun is a main pillar for guaranteeing any dialogue, be it between Lebanese Muslim parties or Lebanese Christian parties.”

Machnouk said he had briefed Aoun on the outcome of two dialogue sessions held by senior officials from the Future Movement and Hezbollah in the past few weeks. A third round of talks between the two rival parties is scheduled to take place at Ain al-Tineh Friday. Machnouk is one of three Future officials representing his party in the talks with Hezbollah. The interior minister also briefed the FPM leader Monday’s security operation that dismantled Islamist militants’ operations room at Roumieh Prison and transferred them to a tightly controlled jail block. Describing Future’s dialogue with Hezbollah as “an irreversible strategic option,” Machnouk said: “It is too early to talk about progress … But we have a firm desire to make it successful. We are behaving on this basis and we hope the other parties will do the same.”

Machnouk said Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria and the party’s arsenal were not on the dialogue agenda after being put off until the election of a president. Future MP Samir Jisr said the third dialogue session with Hezbollah would discuss the presidential election. “The Future-Hezbollah dialogue will shift next Friday from generalities to the political chapter, the most important of which is the election of a president,” Jisr told the Voice of Lebanon radio station. Referring to last week’s twin suicide bombing that targeted a crowed café in the northern city of Tripoli, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30 others, he said: “What happened will make us more determined on dialogue.”Jisr added that the first item discussed by Future and Hezbollah officials was defusing sectarian tensions.

Future MP Atef Majdalani said the talks with Hezbollah would continue until sectarian tensions were reduced and a president was elected. “The dialogue sessions between the Future Movement and Hezbollah will continue to reach a solution to the two main problems raised by [former] Prime Minister Saad Hariri: defusing Sunni-Shiite tensions and finding a mechanism to facilitate the election of a new president,” Majdalani told the Voice of Lebanon radio station. Following a second round of talks last week, the Future Movement and Hezbollah said they had made “serious progress” to defuse sectarian tensions exacerbated by the conflict in Syria. The two sides also agreed to support the continued implementation of a government security plan in all Lebanese territories following the successful restoration of state authority in Tripoli.

Defusing Sunni-Shiite tensions is the main item on the dialogue agenda which, according to officials from both sides, also includes finding a mechanism to allow the election of a president, boosting efforts to combat terrorism, promoting a new electoral law and energizing stagnant state institutions. The Future-Hezbollah dialogue has won support from rival politicians, as well as from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, the U.S. and the European Union. Efforts are also underway to launch a similar dialogue between Aoun and Geagea in a bid to break the presidential deadlock. EU Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst reiterated the EU’s support for intra-Lebanese talks and called for the quick election of a president.
Eichorst, who met Prime Minister Tammam Salam along with a delegation of EU ambassadors, also voiced support for the raid on Roumieh Prison and condemned the Tripoli bombings. “We consider that dialogue among various political parties will reconcile viewpoints and help in defusing the tense situation at all levels,” she told reporters at the Grand Serail. “We, as the European Union, hope for Lebanon to have a president as soon as possible and for institutions to function and Parliament to be able to approve necessary draft laws.”

Meanwhile, Qassem ruled out an imminent presidential election. “I don’t think the presidential election will take place soon due to complications in the presidency issue, even though Hezbollah has a clear stance in supporting Gen. Aoun,” he said in an interview with Al-Joumhouria newspaper. He said Lebanon had entered a new phase of stability as a result of the ongoing Future-Hezbollah talks. “Certainly, any step that brings the Lebanese together will lead to further stability. Therefore, when the dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement was launched, we considered that we have entered a new phase of further stability in Lebanon,” Qassem said. “The climate of tensions is being eased and the circumstances for trouble-makers are no longer conducive as they were before.”