By Hadi Khatib
Lebnonwire staff

The Shebaa Farms, the sour pill that participants at the national dialogue could not digest, causing a one week delay of the talks, will again be the central issue on Monday, only this time with a twist: President Emile Lahoud’s claim that two other Israeli settlements in the South are also Lebanese and need to be liberated.

Perhaps wishing to extend the conflict and divert attention from his own precarious position at the helm, Lahoud pulled an early Christmas present from his deep Santa goodies bag, announcing yesterday that Israeli settlements Maskafaam and Metullah are Lebanese territories that need to be added to the Shebaa Farms as targets for the resistance movement Hezbollah to be liberated. This news was provided by Al-Balad daily’s sources in Baabda who added that Lahoud is not happy with the progress of the dialogue and had deep reservations against the March 14th alliance. The daily said the Farms are a complicated issue on their own and quoted Batroun MP Butros Harb as saying following his visit with Speaker Nabih Berri “we need Syria’s cooperation to solve the Shebaa issue.”

In a pre-recorded interview with Al-Jazeera television, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat announced that resolving the Shebaa Farms dilema “leads to a natural solution for Hezbollah’s weapons.” Jumblat had said during a visit to the UN headquarters in New York this week that Hezbollah was a militia that needed to disarm as per UN Security Resolution 1559 and the Taif Accord. Jumblat added during the interview “Lahoud needs to be ousted, as he is the main obstacle towards efforts at building a new government, and the new presidential candidate is in the hands of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.” Daily An-Nahar reported that Jumblat had returned to Lebanon on Saturday adding the Druze leader said he would refrain from issuing statements until the dialogue resumes on Monday.

Sources told An-Nahar that Future Movement leader Saad Hariri’s meeting with Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah resulted in a temporary easing of tension over the issue of the Shebaa Farms adding “there is no need to over exaggerate optimism or pessimism about the outcome of the dialogue issue, but we expect to find a solution for most articles of discussion, with Lahoud’s presidency high on the agenda of talks.” On this issue, daily Ad-Diyar said Sunday that the presidency is not a likely topic to be discussed or resolved at the talks. It quoted Harb as saying “the presidency cannot be discussed under the tense atmosphere of the dialogue; it needs consent from outside the confines of the parliament talks.”

Quoting a source at the roundtable talks, Al-Hayat daily said “participants at the dialogue are expected to re-adjourn the meet again as they will not be able to resolve the Shebaa Farms issue since it required a Syrian official document confirming its Lebanese identity to the UN in addition to facing a major roadblock with the presidential issue which requires an Arab initiative with Syria.”

Hezbollah MP Hasan Fadlallah said yesterday that the resistance party will return to the roundtable on the conditions initially set, which required unanimity and not majority consent to settle outstanding issues “and away from foreign influences and pressures exhibited by the activities of local ambassadors and statements made from the US.” Jumblat had indicated during his television interview “I only asked for political and semantic support from the US government in addition to military assistance to the army in terms of weapons and training and of course the US wants an independent Lebanon free from Syrian influence.”

Meanwhile French President Jacques Chirac announced his full support for the implementation of UN 1559, following a meeting with UN Special Envoy for Middle East Affairs Terje-Roed Larsen. Larsen said the national dialogue is “a bright light in a dark and complicated Middle East.”

An-Nahar daily quoted a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem will visit Russia over the weekend to discuss “Russia’s support for the process of finding the truth regarding former premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder and the implementation of UN 1559, 1636, and 1644, as well as Lebanese-Syrian relations with the understanding that respect for sovereignty and independence are essential to achieve peace in the region.”

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