Rival Lebanese politicians open French-sponsored roundtable talks near Paris on Saturday which could make modest progress towards ending an 8-month-old political crisis that threatens to plunge Lebanon into chaos. Officials have been at pains to dampen expectations for the 2-day meeting, hosted by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner at a secluded site in the Saint-Cloud suburb.
The French Foreign Ministry said the meeting had been cut to two days from three because Kouchner had other engagements. Hopes for the meeting do not exceed laying the groundwork for a resumption of dialogue between the various factions in Beirut on how to break their impasse. "I do not look to Paris as the final station. I look at it as a starting point of a new strategy," MP Ibrahim Kanaan, a representative of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, said. |