Mansour to Attend Arab Foreign Ministers Meeting in Cairo on Sunday
Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour will head to the Egyptian capital on Sunday to attend a meeting for the Arab Foreign ministers.
Arab Foreign Ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the Syrian conflict and the Geneva ll peace conference, in addition to the efforts exerted by U.N. Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi who is currently in Beirut as part of a regional tour to garner support for the U.S.-Russian peace initiative.
“We informed the international envoy that Lebanon will attend the conference as it constitutes an essential national, security, political, social and humanitarian matter,” Mansour said in comments published in As Safir newspaper on Saturday.
He pointed out that Lebanon has to confront the dangerous repercussions of the Syrian turmoil and to support any political solution to the conflict in the neighboring country as it will “relief Lebanon and the region.”
Efforts to convene the conference next month have met with several obstacles, with a key opposition group refusing to attend if Syrian President Bashar Assad's resignation is not on the agenda.
National Coalition leader Ahmed Jarba, who had requested backing from the Arab foreign ministers, said the umbrella opposition group would negotiate only "a transfer of all power and then the departure of the mass killer (Assad)."
Assad has shown no sign of backing down after a two-and-a-half-year civil war that has left more than 115,000 people dead, saying he is ready to stand for re-election next year.
Damascus has also insisted that Assad's resignation will not be on the table at the Geneva meeting.
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