Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Future Movement hopes that its dialogue with Hezbollah will lead to a breakthrough in the 7-month-old presidential deadlock, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Sunday.
“We hope that the dialogue with Hezbollah will produce progress and a breakthrough in the presidential vacuum,” he told The Daily Star.
Future MP Samir Jisr, who participated in the first session of dialogue with Hezbollah that kicked off last week, also said the talks between the two influential rival parties might lead to a breakthrough in the presidential stalemate.
“Perhaps dialogue [with Hezbollah] will create a loophole to halt the vacancy in the presidency,” Jisr said in an interview to be published by Al-Liwaa newspaper Monday.
“The dialogue is not [meant] to establish a four-party alliance and does not target the Christians,” he said, referring to an alleged alliance grouping in addition to the Future Movement and Hezbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party.
Jisr said the first round of talks sponsored by Speaker Nabih Berri at his residence in Ain al-Tineh was frank and covered all divisive issues. “We talk to Hezbollah with whom we disagree on many issues in order to prevent their dangerous repercussions on the country,” he said.
Divisive issues such as Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria, the party’s arsenal and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, are not on the dialogue agenda.
Jisr said the second round of talks would be held on Jan. 5.
A source close to Berri said all dialogue sessions would be held at Ain al-Tineh as demanded by the two sides. The source voiced optimism about the next sessions based on the atmosphere that prevailed in the first session.
“All members of the two delegations have spoken positively as if they are speaking one language and no negative stance was issued by any member,” one of the participants said. “All [members] spoke positively, expressing desire for the dialogue to reach the required results.”
“Furthermore, this dialogue is significant because it constitutes an incentive for others to talk to each other, particularly in the Christian arena,” the source said, clearly referring to the planned talks between FPM leader MP Michel Aoun and Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea.
The source called on rival Christian leaders to unify their options over the presidential issue in order to facilitate the election of a new Lebanese president.
Referring to Saturday’s meeting between Berri and Prime Minister Tammam Salam at Ain al-Tineh, the source said: “There was an identity of views on the oil issue and on the importance of the government to quickly issue two decrees related to outlining the marine blocks and licensing [offshore] gas and oil exploration with the aim of pushing this file forward.”
Asked whether 2015 could be the year of the oil and gas drilling for Lebanon, Berri was quoted by visitors as saying: “I will continue to work with this file. If anyone has another investment that can bring money to Lebanon, let them tell us about it.” Officials from the Future Movement and Hezbollah have said the dialogue was primarily aimed at reducing Sunni-Shiite tensions fueled by the war in Syria, facilitating the presidential election, boosting efforts to combat terrorism, promoting a new electoral law and energizing stagnant state institutions.
Siniora, who heads the parliamentary Future bloc, defended his party’s decision to enter into talks with Hezbollah, saying that the alternative to dialogue was “frightening.”
“They ask us why we agreed to launch this dialogue with Hezbollah and [said] that it would be futile like previous ones. … This does not justify refraining from trying and honestly seeking progress on the dialogue path with the aim of achieving national gains that benefit all the Lebanese,” Siniora said in a speech Saturday commemorating the first anniversary of the assassination of former Minister Mohammad Chatah.
“The other alternative is frightening and only strengthens failure and stagnation,” he added.
Chatah, who served as a political adviser to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, was killed along with seven others in a car bomb explosion in Beirut on Dec. 27 last year. During the memorial ceremony attended by Cabinet members and March 14 MPs, a square in Beirut, the site of the bombing, was named after Chatah.
“There is no other road except the dialogue road to search for means to strengthen our unity and civil peace,” Siniora said.
He added that the dialogue with Hezbollah was designed to search for a consensus to end the presidential vacuum deadlock. “The Lebanese need to make a breakthrough with regard to reaching the election of a strong consensus president who has the characteristics of leadership, a sharp vision, wisdom and foresight,” Siniora said.
Parliament has repeatedly failed since April over a lack of quorum to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure ended on May 25. A new Parliament session to elect a president has been set for Jan. 7.
Siniora said the talks with Hezbollah were aimed at “paving the way to revive the idea of a Lebanon as a nation, as a strong, just state that has exclusive rights over all of its territory” and its borders.
Implicitly criticizing Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war, he said: “It is no longer acceptable for a single party to threaten civil peace in the country by involving themselves and others and the entire country in uncalculated internal or external adventures that reflect negatively on all the Lebanese.”