BEIRUT: The March 14 coalition will begin intensive consultations this week to revive its initiative aimed at reaching an agreement with the rival March 8 bloc on a consensus candidate for the presidency, March 14 sources said Sunday.
The consultations will be in line with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s pledge to Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai during their meeting in Rome last month to seek a solution to the presidential vacuum crisis following the extension of Parliament’s mandate, the sources said.
Hariri will personally contact Western states that have influence in Lebanon on the presidential deadlock, as well as Lebanese leaders, while his chief of staff Nader Hariri will handle details of the negotiations, political sources said.
The consultations on the presidential issue would take place while Lebanese officials await the outcome of the ongoing U.S.-Iranian nuclear negotiations, hoping that a deal between Washington and Tehran would eventually set the stage for the election of a president.
Lebanon has been without a president for more than five months after Parliament has since April failed over a lack of quorum to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure ended on May 25.
Lawmakers last week extended Parliament’s mandate for two years and seven months, citing security concerns and arguing that the move was essential to avert a vacuum in the legislative branch of power.
Earlier Sunday, Hariri held talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the Husseiniya Palace in Amman. The two leaders discussed recent developments in the region and bilateral ties between Jordan and Lebanon and means to bolster them, according to a statement released by Hariri’s office.
They also discussed “issues of common interest,” the statement added, without providing details.
Meanwhile, a Future lawmaker called on Hezbollah to take confidence-building measures if a long-awaited dialogue with the Future Movement is to begin soon.
The Future call cast doubts about an early thaw between the two influential parties whose strained ties have heightened sectarian tensions in the country.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah last week extended an olive branch to the Future Movement, offering to cooperate with his Sunni rivals to shield Lebanon from the repercussions of regional turmoil and the threat of militant groups which have fought the Lebanese Army near the border with Syria.
The Future Movement’s response to Nasrallah’s conciliatory gesture would determine if any dialogue could be launched between the two sides. “Dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah has not started yet. The Future Movement is still studying Sayyed Nasrallah’s speech before taking a final stance on it,” Houri told The Daily Star Sunday. “Hezbollah is required to build an atmosphere of confidence and send positive signals in order for the dialogue to get off the ground.”
“A phase of confidence building must precede any dialogue with Hezbollah,” he added.
Houri recalled that previous experiments with Hezbollah in Dialogue sessions in Parliament and Baabda Palace were not encouraging, especially with “Hezbollah’s change of heart concerning the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”
“There are three key divisive issues that need to be addressed in any dialogue with Hezbollah: Hezbollah’s arsenal, the party’s military intervention in Syria and the STL.”Hezbollah has dismissed the U.N.-backed STL, which is trying suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as an “American-Israeli plot” designed to incite sectarian strife in Lebanon. The tribunal has indicted five Hezbollah members in Hariri’s killing and their trial is ongoing in absentia in The Hague where the STL is located.
The Future Movement and its March 14 allies have slammed Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria to help President Bashar Assad’s forces as a violation of the Baabda Declaration, which calls for distancing Lebanon from regional and international conflicts, particularly the war in Syria.
Houri noted that Nasrallah’s offer came more than three months after Hariri launched an initiative for dialogue with the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance to break the presidential deadlock.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Fneish, one of two Hezbollah representatives in the Cabinet, said his party was waiting for the Future Movement’s response to Nasrallah’s speech last week to weigh the prospects of dialogue between the two sides.
“We have always been ready for dialogue with the Future Movement to deal with the security threats facing the country,” Fneish told The Daily Star.
Noting that Nasrallah’s speech has opened the door wide to dialogue with the Future Movement, he said: “We are ready to talk on all divisive issues, including the party’s arms and its intervention in Syria.”
Fneish pointed out that there was no break in ties between Hezbollah and the Future Movement as “ministers and lawmakers from both parties talk to each other in the Cabinet and in Parliament.”
Nasrallah’s dialogue offer came nearly two weeks after long-brewing tensions between Future and Hezbollah, caused mainly by the party’s intervention in Syria, reached a crescendo when Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk accused the party of undermining security plans in Lebanon.
Machnouk said the government security plan predominantly targeted the Sunni community and turned a blind eye to Hezbollah-dominated areas.
Responding to Machnouk, Fneish said Hezbollah had never barred security forces from pursuing any criminal or attacker in areas where the party enjoys wide support.
Hezbollah also came under fire by several prominent March 14 figures, including Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi last month, who claimed that the party was implicated in the attacks on Army positions in the northern city of Tripoli. Hezbollah has denied the charges.