Nasrallah Meets Turkish, Qatari FMs after They Held 4-Hour Talks with Hariri
The foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar met overnight Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah following four hours of talks with caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find ways to resolve the tribunal crisis.
A statement issued by Hizbullah on Wednesday said talks late Tuesday with Nasrallah focused on "proposed solutions" to the political crisis.
An-Nahar newspaper on Wednesday said the FMs' talks with Lebanese government officials focused on two points: maintaining stability and preparing for binding parliamentary consultations to name the next prime minister.
But the talks, according to An-Nahar, bumped into a set of conditions imposed by the Opposition as a result of the indictment which was submitted on Monday.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to try the killers of former PM Rafik Hariri, insisted Tuesday on keeping its first indictment under wraps as fears of violence rose on the streets of Beirut.
Bellemare warned that speculation on the indictment, which is widely believed to implicate Hizbullah, would be "counter-productive."
On Tuesday, Turkey's foreign minister was traveling to Beirut in a coordinated visit with Qatar's prime minister to discuss the political crisis in Lebanon.
Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu and Qatar's FM and Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani arrived in Beirut on Tuesday in a bid to find a solution to the Lebanon crisis.
Davutoglu's trip to Beirut came a day after consultations with Iran's new acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Ankara.
On Tuesday, Davutoglu and Sheikh Hamad meet President Michel Suleiman, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and PM Hariri.
Local media said the two leaders are expected to meet on Wednesday with Lebanese politicians from both the majority March 8 coalition and the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance. A meeting with Druze leader Walid Jumblat is also on their agenda.
They said Davutoglu and Sheikh Hamad were shrouded in silence as they made no statements to the press following their Tuesday meetings.
Berri, in remarks published Wednesday by An-Nahar said he has informed the visiting FMs that the majority March 14 coalition "missed a golden opportunity -- a guarantee out of this crisis."
On Tuesday, Berri reminded the Lebanese that the Opposition had warned that its policy would change once the indictment was issued.
He said that policy "has entered the stage of implementation" as of Monday afternoon, when the STL announced that a confidential indictment had been submitted.
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