SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - The key to resolving Lebanon's political crisis is to convene an international tribunal on ex-premier Rafiq Hariri's murder, former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel said Monday.

"The meeting concentrated on the necessity to resolve the Lebanese crisis," Gemayel told journalists in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"The key to resolving the Lebanese crisis lies in ratification of the international tribunal," as demanded by the UN Security Council, he said.

"We don't see the international tribunal from a vindictive standpoint, but rather (as a means) to end the criminal acts taking place on the Lebanese scene," said Gemayel, whose own son, Pierre Gemayel, a cabinet minister, was murdered in November in Beirut.

Gemayel, Lebanon's president from 1982 until 1988, considers Syria to be the main suspect in the murder of his son and of Hariri.

Aside from the assassination of Hariri in February 2005, along with 22 other people, the tribunal is also to probe a series of other assassinations of politicians and journalists in Lebanon.

Pro-Syrian opposition parties are calling for an amendment to the measure setting up the tribunal and parliament speaker Nabih Berri refuses to convene a session of parliament until the issue is resolved. -AFP