By Hadi Khatib
Lebanonwire staff

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat announced in a televised interview Wednesday with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBCi) that he would neither back down on any of his demands nor would he retract his statements and in so doing has escalated the confrontation with Hezbollah who now hints at his secretary general boycotting the national dialogue.

Jumblat had in the interview reaffirmed his earlier positions made in Lebanon that Hezbollah is a militia that needs to disarm and that Shebaa Farms are not Lebanese, “or at least they might be a property of Lebanon, but do not fall under Lebanon’s sovereignty according to the international community.”

“These are my positions which I had expressed earlier and I won’t back down on any of them, and on Monday we will resume the talks,” Jumblat told LBC.

Lebanon’s dailies are in agreement that despite assurances that the rescheduling of the dialogue until next Monday was a necessary move to review and evaluate major articles of the national dialogue, they believe that the crisis developing between Hezbollah and Jumblat is the real culprit and is threatening to undermine substantial progress made on issues related to Palestinian arms, relations and Syria and the Shebaa Farms, in addition to a consensus that president Emile Lahoud should be replaced.

A-Nahar daily said that participants at the national dialogue have been reduced into a role of a third party brokering a peace between Hezbollah and the Druze leader, who on Wednesday met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York, where according to Al-Mustaqbal daily Jumblat discussed the international court related to former premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder and the application of UN resolutions with respect to Lebanon.

Speaker Nabih Berri announced following a meeting of his Liberation and Development Bloc that on Monday the dialogue will resume with the participation of Jumblat and expressed hope that Lebanese will be hearing news of consensus over a number of issues.

The Future Movement also declared that a dialogue’s failure is “forbidden” pointing to the historical opportunity at hand to prove the Lebanese’s ability to administer their own affairs. The An-Nahar daily indicated that informed sources within the movement are pointing to positive progress in bringing all the leaders and officials back to the roundtable talks “in order to resolve the row created by Jumblat’s comments from Washington last Monday.”

The daily also spoke of a hardening of positions in Hezbollah with regard to Jumblat, quoting officials there as saying “his statements confirm what we had been warning about, and that is the existence of US agents on the dialogue table who are expressing American intentions through their Lebanese representatives.”

The same sources indicated that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah will not resume a dialogue until he receives “final clarifications from Jumblat himself.”

Al Mustaqbal daily quoted Hezbollah’s political council member Ghaleb Abou Zaynab as saying that “certain political parties are still betting on foreign powers aiming to implement the ambitions of the US administration and threatening to deepen the internal crisis.”

Al Mustaqbal daily said the Future Movement is urging Lebanese to resume talks which require of leaders to be up to the task ahead aimed at fulfilling the Lebanese’s aspirations of a new and prosperous Lebanon, one which also restores a sense of dignity to the presidency.

For his part former president Amine Gemayel pointed that participants are in agreement over a number of issues including the next president “which is a Maronite matter under the auspices of Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir and efforts are underway to find an alternative candidate.”

Ad-Diyar daily indicated Thursday that Jumblat’s statements prevented participants in the national dialogue from agreeing on the Shebaa Farms and Palestinian weapons. The daily pointed out that the issue of the resistance arms and the presidency were two items that needed more discussions.

Meanwhile Baabda sources told the daily that “proceeding with the dialogue is a must or else it might have severe repercussions on the internal situation of the country”, adding “Lahoud is looking forward to the resumption of talks on Monday.” The same sources indicated that “Lebanese are not unanimously in agreement of the need to change the president, an issue which some parties are trying to force backed by foreign powers.”

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