Beirut - Lebanon's Shiite House Speaker Nabih Berri said
late Wednesday that he will ask Saudi Arabia to host a Lebanese
reconciliation conference to solve the ongoing political crisis in
the country.
'I will send on Monday a letter to the Saudi officials to host a
meeting for the Lebanese rival leaders to try to achieve a
reconciliation,' Berri said on a local television programme.
Berri, who expressed pessimism in solving the current political
crisis, the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, stressed
that 'only a dialogue would solve such a crisis, but with the help of
countries like Saudi Arabia.'
Berri's call for Saudi Arabia's intervention came after the
parliament's anti-Syrian majority called on the UN to go ahead with
an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination
of former premier Rafik Hariri, after the government failed to win
opposition support for its creation and Berri refused to convene a
session to approve the draft to establish such a court.
The anti-Syrian coalition called on the UN Tuesday to take
'alternative measures' to approve the tribunal to try suspects in the
assassination of Hariri.
The move has deepened differences between the pro and anti-Syrian
camps, which has led to sectarian violence in recent months that has
killed scores of people.
According to Lebanese observers, the move by the majority was
aimed at putting pressure on the Hezbollah-led opposition to change
course.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah group warned that a UN-imposed
tribunal will be 'a court against Lebanon and not to try the killers
of Premier Hariri.'
Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority
and son of the slain premier, presented a memorandum to Geir
Pederson, the UN representative in Lebanon, demanding UN action
to establish the tribunal.
Signed by 70 of parliament's 128 members, the memorandum seeks
UN action in line with a draft agreement signed in 2006 between the
government and the United Nations.
Hariri and his supporters have demanded that the opposition
endorse the creation of a 'tribunal with an international character'
that includes Lebanese and foreign judges. Hezbollah and its allies
have declined. They want limits to the court's mandate.
The pro-Syrian opposition led by Hezbollah and backed by Lebanese
President Emile Lahoud and Berri, consider the Western-backed
government of Fouad Seniora 'illegitimate' after all Shiite ministers
resigned last November.
The country has since been divided as the opposition insists on
forming a national unity government - a demand rejected by the ruling
anti-Syrian majority.
The government has accused the opposition of acting under the
orders of their Syrian allies to block the creation of an
international tribunal.
Hariri's killing triggered domestic and international protests
which forced Syria, Lebanon's one-time powerbroker, to end 30 years
of military presence and political domination of its neighbour in
April 2005.
Damascus has vehemently denied any involvement in Hariri's death,
but an ongoing UN probe has implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials
in the assassination.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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