Pat Dollard | Young Americans

DOHA - Crisis talks between rival Lebanese leaders stumbled towards a Wednesday (today) deadline as the Hezbollah-led Opposition sought more time to study Arab proposals to end a political feud that nearly drove the country to a new civil war.

An Arab mediating committee, chaired by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani, “has agreed to give time until tomorrow,” an official of host country Qatar said on Tuesday, the fifth day of tense talks.

“One of the two parties asked today for more time to respond” to two proposals put forward by the committee to break the deadlock, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Mahmud told reporters in Doha.

He did not say who had sought the extension, but a delegate of the Western-backed government told AFP the extra time had been demanded by the Opposition, which is backed by Iran and Syria.

Shortly afterwards, Opposition MP Ali Hasan Khalil dismissed the two proposals.

“You are talking about something that does not exist,” he told AFP when asked whether the opposition received them.

He added, however, that the Opposition’s intention “is to stay in Doha until an agreement is reached.”

Qatar had put forward a compromise proposal calling for an immediate parliamentary vote to elect Lebanon’s army chief General Michel Sleiman as president and the formation of a unity government while postponing talks on a proposed new electoral law.

The Opposition refused to put off discussion of the disputed electoral law, and insisted on getting a “blocking minority” in a proposed unity government.

According to the government delegate, a second proposal suggested a return to an electoral law adopted in 1960, which is no longer in force. That would require amendments to disputed constituency boundaries in the capital Beirut - the bedrock of support for Sunni parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.

Rival parties aim to secure as many as possible of the capital’s 19 seats in the 128-member parliament.

The two proposals converged in offering the Opposition a long-demanded “blocking minority” of 11 ministers in the cabinet and calling for a vote on Sleiman immediately, said the delegate, requesting anonymity.

The majority would get 16 ministers, while three neutral ministers would be named by the new president, he added.

The two sides had previously agreed on Sleiman as a consensus candidate to succeed Damascus protege Emile Lahoud, who stood down at the end of his term in November.

But differences over the makeup of a new unity government and proposed changes to the electoral law have so far blocked his election. The deadlock has worsened a crisis that erupted in November 2006 when six pro-Syrian ministers quit the cabinet of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, which has the support of Washington and Riyadh.

During a meeting in the Saudi city of Dammam on Tuesday, heads of state of the Saudi-led six-member Gulf Cooperation Council urged the Lebanese foes to reach a deal and backed Qatar’s efforts in bringing them together, the GCC secretary general said.

The 18-month-old deadlock erupted into bitter sectarian fighting earlier this month that saw 65 people killed and during which Hezbollah and its Shia allies briefly seized Sunni areas of mainly Muslim west Beirut.

The proposed changes to the electoral law could prove decisive in determining the outcome of parliamentary elections due next year.

Qatar has also proposed including a clause in the final statement of the talks requiring all sides to renounce any new resort to armed violence in internal disputes.

(AFP)