Middle East News
Arab League delegation working on talks between Lebanese (1st Lead)
By DPA
May 14, 2008, 11:53 GMT

Beirut - A visiting Arab League delegation started Wednesday meetings between opposing factions in Lebanon in a bid to resolve the conflict which has brought the country close to civil war.

The team, headed by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, and Arab League Secrtary General Amr Mussa, started their meetings with House Speaker Nabih Berri.

There was no statement made by the delegation after their talks with Berri.

The delegation is scheduled to meet with premier Fouad Seniora and later Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to try to defuse the violence that has engulfed the country since May 7 and has left at least 82 people killed.

'This is the last chance for compromise if not, there will be chaos,' an Arab diplomat accompanying the delegation told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.

Top of the agenda will be efforts to end an anti-government protest campaign by Hezbollah militants and their allies that has led to the shutdown of a number of major roads in Lebanon, including the highway to the airport.

No commercial flights have been scheduled from the country's only international airport for the seventh straight day, an airport official said.

There was speculation that the government would decide at a meeting later Wednesday to reverse its recent controversial decisions concerning the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah's comunication network, which triggered the latest turmoil.

The Arab League in recent months has made a number of failed attempts to mediate an end to the long-running political standoff between the ruling majority and the opposition that exploded into deadly gunbattles last week.

The sectarian fighting is the worst since the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said last Thursday that the government action against his group amounted to a declaration of war and within hours his fighters and their allies had taken over large swathes of Sunni areas in west Beirut.