Report: Hale to Travel to Riyadh to Resolve Policy Statement Deadlock

U.S. Ambassador David Hale is expected to visit Riyadh this weekend in an attempt to salvage the new government from the deadlock of the policy statement, al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Thursday.

The daily said Hale's expected talks with top Saudi officials are aimed at finding a solution to the impasse of the policy statement of Prime Minister Tammam Salam's government on the eve of the presidential elections.

The diplomat wants to resolve the crisis to allow the government to receive parliament's vote of confidence so that it can prepare for the presidential elections on time, it added.

President Michel Suleiman's six-year term ends in May.

Meanwhile, al-Liwaa newspaper and pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted Salam as saying that he was not pessimistic on the disagreement between the rival parties on the resistance clause of the policy statement.

He expected the blueprint to be approved as soon as possible, the reports said.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Ammar Houri, who met with Salam on Wednesday, told al-Liwaa that the prime minister sees the policy statement as an “urgent necessity for all the political parties.”

“In the current circumstances, the country needs a genuine government and not a caretaker cabinet,” Houri quoted Salam as saying.

The committee tasked with drafting the policy statement will hold its ninth meeting on Friday but it has failed to narrow differences on the resistance clause after the March 14 alliance stressed that the resistance should be placed under the authority of the Lebanese state.

The Hizbullah-led March 8 camp, on the other hand, rejected this demand, wanting to legitimize the party's armed resistance against Israel.