Report: Berri and Hizbullah to Handle Talks with Arslan on Costa Brava Landfill

Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah party have vowed to Prime Minister Tammam Salam that they will handle the talks with MP Talal Arslan to substitute the Kfour landfill with that in the area of Costa Brava in Khaldeh after the latter expressed unwillingness to do so, unnamed ministerial sources told Al Mustaqbal daily on Sunday.

The Premier was planning to call for a cabinet session on Monday to tackle the thorny trash crisis file, but Berri and Hizbullah asked him to pause the move for 24 hours pending their scheduled meeting with head of the Lebanese Democratic Party Arslan on Sunday, the paper added.

For his part, Arslan who rejects setting a landfill in the said area, announced in a press conference on Saturday that a delegation by Berri and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will visit him.

The proposal to set up a landfill in the area of Khaldeh instead of the southern region of Kfour was suggested by Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah on Friday.

They also suggested that the locations in Kfour and Costa Brava be used as landfills instead of the one chosen in Srar in the northern region of Akkar.

Salam is expected to call for a cabinet convention in light of the outcome of talks with Arslan to decide on the waste file.

Conflicting reports have emerged on whether officials had agreed on the contentious issue of landfills.

Some said that an agreement has been reached on the Srar location in the North and Kfour area in the South, while others said that a new location in Khaldeh will be adopted instead.

Disputes also remain over whether to set up a landfill in the Keserouan area.

Reports on Friday spoke of the possibility of distributing the Keserouan trash between Srar and Kfour.

Lebanon has been suffering from a trash disposal crisis since July with the closure of the Naameh landfill.

Politicians have failed to find an alternative to the landfill, resulting in the pile up of garbage on the streets of the country.

Heavy rain last week brought with it flooded streets coupled with waste, as experts warned of the health and environmental impact of the crisis.