Lebanese reach draft on Hezbollah arms
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese political factions reached a compromise on Hezbollah's arsenal, the information minister said Friday, releasing a vaguely worded draft statement that implies the militant group can keep its weapons.
The position paper must now be approved by Parliament, whose vote will decide whether to accept a unity government that includes Hezbollah. The new Cabinet was formed after Hezbollah gunmen routed armed supporters of the previous pro-Western administration earlier this year.
Hezbollah's arms have long been a point of dispute, with many legislators in the Western-backed majority in Parliament wanting to disarm the group. Hezbollah rejects the demand, and it will hold veto power in the new government.
The draft statement announced by Information Minister Tarek Mitri is deliberately vague, saying only that the committee agreed "on the right of Lebanon's people, the army and the resistance to liberate all its territories."
"Resistance" is Lebanon's jargon for Hezbollah, which is admired by many in Lebanon for its stand against Israel. "All territories" alludes to Lebanon's territorial claim on the Chebaa Farms area that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war.
After Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, militias were ordered dissolved, but Hezbollah fighters were allowed to keep their weapons because they were considered a resistance group fighting Israeli troops that occupied part of southern Lebanon until 2000.
Many officials in the pro-Western bloc had argued that statement should not include the word "resistance" and that it should make "liberating the occupied lands" solely the national army's responsibility. But Hezbollah and its allies strongly opposed those demands.
Lebanon has been rife with tensions as the pro-Western Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has struggled to form the national unity government in which Hezbollah will have veto power in all government decisions.
The Hezbollah-led opposition won the concession in May as part of an Arab-brokered deal to end months of political stalemate that had escalated into violence and raised fears Lebanon's sectarian factions could plunge into a new civil war.
Before the agreement, 81 people died and more than 200 were wounded as Hezbollah militants and their allies battled supporters of Saniora's government in Beirut and other cities. Sectarian violence since the deal has killed 29 people.
