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The Tueni Initiative for Defusing Regional Tensions
Lebanon's leading columnist MP Ghassan Tueni on Monday urged Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Premier Fouad Saniora to set aside their differences and represent Lebanon at the forthcoming Arab Summit in Damascus.
Tueni, in an editorial published by the daily an-Nahar, also proposed the formation of a cabinet of technocrats made up of six-to-ten ministers who enjoy "minimum harmony" to tackle security, economic and development issues of interest to the people.

He predicted that a Russian Fleet could suddenly cruise international waters of the Mediterranean off the Lebanon, Palestine and Syria coastlines, recalling that the Russian Fleet has a base in Syria since the Soviet era.

Tueni explained that the deployment of such naval forces is a reminder of the old "cold war in warm waters that prevents the outbreak of any war, including the war that prompted" the naval missions.

"The Russian fleet would not hoist war banners … it would be on a normal cruise to outline its right to enter Mediterranean waters and Gulf waters," he added.

Berri and Saniora, should they represent Lebanon at the Damascus Summit, must propose a "comprehensive pan-Arab stand, call for regaining intra-Arab entente … then ask the Arabs to adopt a decisive stand regarding developments in Gaza, even at the cost of embarrassing some major Arab states," Tueni wrote.

Such a stand should result in the immediate adoption of an "international resolution that sponsors the deployment of international troops in Gaza under chapter seven of the U.N. Charter," he noted.

Such "an initiative" Tueni concluded, could lead major powers to invest the deployment of their fleets in the interest of non-super powers for the first time ever.

Beirut, 03 Mar 08, 13:14


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