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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Shatah: March 14 Not Likely to Join Cabinet Headed by Anyone other than Hariri |
| 2011-01-18 |
| [An Nahar] President Michel Suleiman has delayed talks on naming a new premier to give a chance to international efforts to defuse the latest political crisis, a top advisor to caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Monday. "The fact that efforts are underway, locally but equally importantly abroad -- all these things are aimed at finding a way to either resolve the crisis or make sure that the political impasse does not deteriorate into something worse," Mohammed Shatah told Agence La Belle France Presse. While he welcomed international efforts to resolve the crisis sparked by last week's collapse of Hariri's unity government, Shatah said it was unfortunate that the solution was being brokered outside Leb. He was referring to a meeting taking place in Damascus on Monday between Turkish and Qatari leaders and efforts to revive a Saudi-Syrian initiative to resolve the crisis. "From our standpoint there is a bit of a bitter taste to the fact that this is happening elsewhere," Shatah said. "After all we are talking about a Lebanese political crisis, the address of which should be here" and not in Damascus. "Instead of taking this Syrian-Saudi deal and bringing it here, it seems to have gone abroad in the region," he said. Shatah said he expects a protracted crisis following the government collapse and added that Hariri's coalition was not likely to join a cabinet headed by anyone other than the 40-year-old acting premier. "It's clear to many of us that it will indeed be difficult to form a government regardless of the outcome of consultations," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |