By Hadi Khatib
Lebanonwire staff

As the national dialogue moved into the critical stage of attempting to resolve the presidential crisis as an immediate priority before any other pending issues, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun stopped playing coy, announcing himself a presidential candidate willing to remove himself from the roundtable discussions for the sake of transparency.

Wednesday’s talks in Parliament presented a crucial step on the road to removing President Lahoud form office as they focused entirely on the issue without tying the presidency to previously announced conditions set by Hezbollah and the FPM on the resistance’s arms.

“What is being discussed on the roundtable talks is much different from what is being announced outside of it,” Future Movement Leader Saad Hariri announced at the conclusion of yesterday’s talks, before adjourning until next Monday.

Al-Mustaqbal daily said Speaker Nabih Berri made the presidency “the issue” and thereby paved the way to an optimistic end to the crisis.

The daily said a breakthrough is now possible since participants first agreed to reconvene with all the major leaders present, and then reached an “understanding” that the crisis in governance meant the presidency and nothing else.

The daily added that the rescheduling to Monday was very “symbolic” in that it sends a message to Arab leaders a day before they meet at the Arab Summit in Khartoum that Lahoud, although representing Lebanon at the meet, is a topic of discussion on the roundtable talks.

The daily hinted to the fact that Lebanon is indeed asking for an Arab initiative in the issue when it quoted Berri as saying “any Arab initiative to help Lebanon would be appreciated.”

“The discussions were deep, frank and wise and we proved wrong those who believed we would fail…we need to reach a consensus on the presidency issue,” Berri told reporters from parliament after the talks were adjourned.

Daily Al-Hayat reported Berri as saying “indeed the crisis of governance is related to the presidency.”

Meanwhile, daily Al-Hayat said Thursday that Arab leaders are preparing an initiative to support Lebanon’s drive to remove Lahoud and it mainly consists in giving assurances to Damascus that the new president will not antagonize Syria.

Hariri meanwhile said that next Monday the talks will resume discussions about Lahoud, giving time in between for consultations on the sidelines of the dialogue and indicating that these would be “Lebanese-Lebanese.”

“Lahoud tried to sabotage the talks (after his interview with Al-Jazeera last Saturday) but he failed, and I assure everyone that we will reach consensus on both the presidency issue and the resistance’s weapons,” Hariri said.

Former President Amine Gemayel left the talks saying “there is a unified position on the need to remove Lahoud and on finding a mechanism for that removal.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat for his part was quoted by Al-Mustaqbal as saying “we have not backed down from our demands…Lebanon will not live in peace next to a dictatorship.”

Meanwhile, Daily Al-Balad said Thursday that Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah voiced his objections during the talks saying “we are against the removal of Lahoud, we are not convinced on the need to do that at this point, while we believe that street action is counterproductive and are not confined to one party.”

Daily Ad-Diyar joined Al-Balad in saying that during the dialogue, FPM leader Aoun announced his candidacy for the presidency adding “if there are candidates on this table, then I suggest we all leave together for the sake of preserving the integrity and transparency of the talks.”

“The next president should be odorless and colorless and have a large constituency backing him,” Aoun is quoted as saying by the same daily.

Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir said before departing to the Vatican last night that street demonstrations could lead to serious developments “and I don’t see the need to hold parliamentary elections for the time being.”

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