By Hadi Khatib
Lebanonwire staff

On the second day of secretive roundtable talks where Lebanon’s top officials and party leaders are meeting in a national dialogue aimed at finding solutions to a number of outstanding issues topped by the call to remove president Emile Lahoud from office, Al Hayat daily published an article claiming Hezbollah’s admission to receiving 12 truck loads of weapons a few weeks ago.

The daily said it had information regarding what took place inside the conclave, especially with Hezbollah’s Secretary General comments first with respect to Lahoud.

“Assuming there has been no positive impact during Lahoud’s tenure, and that he is bad, what guarantee do Lebanese have that a worse person will not assume the reigns,” the daily reported Nasrallah as saying adding that the Nasrallah asked about the agenda of the new president.

The daily said that Nasrallah discussed UN Security Resolution 1559 with respect to sending the Lebanese Army to the South who it said called for reinforcing the Army to insure guaranteeing Lebanon’s security with respect to the Israeli threat, at which point he would not mind sending it to the area in question.

The daily said Nasrallah admitted his party’s receipt a few weeks back of a shipment of arms loaded on 12 trucks for the service of the resistance, assuring that the weapons would not be used for internal purposes “and it’s better that we receive it instead of other parties who would be unable to regulate its use.” The daily said that Nasrallah explained why he spoke about changing the Syrian regime in a fit of anger over Lebanon’s successive assassinations but that “I am no longer asking for that, since it is an internal issue that only the Syrian people could decide.”

On the other hand, Lebanon’s dailies unanimously reported that yesterday’s meeting finalized the important issue of the Shebaa farms and Kfarshuba heights, agreeing on their Lebanese identity, following a detailed presentation by Speaker Nabih Berri, where he presented of a number of documents and maps that verified they were situated within Lebanese territories.

Al-Balad daily said that the consensus on this issue has given Berri the green light to send a clear message to “our Syrian brethren” on the futility of asking them to submit documents verifying Lebanon’s ownership of the deeds to such lands. “In my opinion, the issue of the (Shebaa) farms is not related to Syria and the Blue Line was drawn following the Israeli withdrawal in 2000,” Berri was quoted as saying in the daily, where he also pointed to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s repeated speeches saying, “Why does everyone insist on us proving the ownership of territories that we do not claim we own.”

What was noticeable on Thursday was the absence of Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat who traveled to the US on personal business. Daily Ad-Diyar reported Berri as saying that “Jumblat’s absence will not alter the mood of the dialogue as this was a planned visit that the Druze leader could not get out from and in any event he has party representatives such as Ghazi Aridi and others who will represent him adequately in his absence.”

Al-Balad said that the issue of the presidency was a common topic of discussion throughout yesterday’s talks, with the same positions taken by the traditional opponents of Lahoud, including Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri, indicating it was evident the absence of any party disapproving the discussion of the issue and the need to solve it, reflecting a general resolution from all involved on the need to remove Lahoud from office as soon as they agree on a viable candidate. In a clear message of agreement over a number of issues pertaining to the resistance and Lahoud’s ousting, Nasrallah went with Hariri to visit the former premier Rafiq Hariri’s burial site, where the two leaders prayed over his soul and those who died with him.

Ad-Diyar also reported Free Patriotic leader Michel Aoun as saying during the talks that “Hezbollah had not committed any mistakes during the Lebanese Civil War or in the years that followed” and praised its importance in Lebanon’s political scene and role in liberating the country from Israeli occupation. The daily said that Hariri did not comment on the issue of disarming Hezbollah and instead insisted on the importance of regulating and dealing with the issue of Palestinian arms in and out of the camps.

Al-Balad reported a Reuters article quoting sources telling the news agency that participants have failed to reach any agreement with regard to Lahoud or the removal of the resistance’s weapons, indicating that tense and heated arguments were exchanged regarding these issues, contrary to other reports about how calm the discussions went. The daily quoted reliable sources as saying that Nasrallah fiercely defended Lahoud in a move which surprised all participants and in particular Hariri.

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