Pessimism Mars Policy Statement Meeting, Intensive Contacts to Precede Tuesday 10th Session

The panel drafting the ministerial policy statement on Friday adjourned its discussions to Tuesday after failing during a ninth meeting to agree on the clause related to resistance against Israel.

“We're determined to present a policy statement to the public opinion and this is a political cabinet, but this is related to agreeing on the constant principles of the Lebanese constitution which stipulate respecting the state in everything,” Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi, the Phalange Party's representative in the panel, told reporters after the session.

“There is big hope that the contacts that will be held in the coming days will lead to a certain result,” he added.

Qazzi stressed that the committee is not “incompetent,” but noted that it “lacks a political decision to perform its full role.”

“There are no initiatives so far,” Health Minister Wael Abou Faour, the committee's spokesman, told reporters after the meeting.

Quoting sources, Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said “the atmosphere is not positive and each party is insisting on its viewpoint regarding the resistance clause.”

“Some ideas were discussed in the panel's meeting but no new formulas were suggested,” the radio station quoted Telecommunications Minister Butros Harb as saying.

Meanwhile, several media outlets quoted Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil as telling his colleagues in the session that “failing to reach a policy statement means there will be no cabinet.”

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) quoted Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq as saying that “should the panel fail to agree on the two pending points, it will resort to cabinet in a bid to resolve the issue before the deadline passes.”

“Most political forces are voicing positive remarks but there are no tangible formulas for the policy statement so far. The panel might fail to approve a policy statement and the debate would return to the cabinet table in that case,” Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil told reporters before the session.

Speaker Nabih Berri has reiterated that he would facilitate the adoption of the government's policy statement if the March 14 alliance showed some leniency.

“There is so far nothing tangible,” several officials, who visited Berri on Thursday, quoted him as saying.

President Michel Suleiman and the March 14 alliance on one side and the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp on the other are locked in a dispute on the resistance clause of the policy statement.

Suleiman and March 14 are upholding the Baabda Declaration. But March 8, which includes Berri's Amal movement, is insisting on including in the blueprint Lebanon’s right to armed resistance against Israeli occupation.

Berri warned his visitors that the ministerial committee tasked with drafting the policy statement has until March 17 to complete its work.

“If the document was not adopted by that time, the president should immediately call for new binding parliamentary consultations to name a new prime minster-designate,” he said.

Highly-informed sources told al-Joumhouria daily that the rival factions were negotiating a compromise on the issue of the resistance whereby the ministerial committee would adopt “Lebanon's right in resisting with all possible means” and “the respect of international resolutions and the decisions reached at the national dialogue table at Baabda Palace.”