Lebanonwire.com | Rice to make surprise visit to Lebanon

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July 22, 2005

Rice makes surprise visit to Lebanon
by Peter Mackler

BEIRUT, Lebanon - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks with Lebanese leaders on a surprise visit to Beirut Friday, days after the formation of the first government since Syria ended its three-decade military presence.

Rice broke off a round of diplomacy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to make the first visit to Beirut by a senior US official since her predecessor Colin Powell in May 2003.

"This will be an opportunity first of all to congratulate the Lebanese people on their incredible desire for democracy and the fact that they keep pressing forward and (have) now formed a government," Rice told reporters on her plane from Jerusalem.

The new government of prime minister designate Fuad Siniora includes for the first time a minister from the fundamentalist Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, which Washington regards as a terrorist group.

Rice's first stop on a brief visit was to the home of Saad Hariri, son of slain former prime minister Rafiq Hariri who was assassinated in a February bomb blast on the Beirut seafront.

She met with Saad Hariri before laying a wreath at his father's tomb and then held talks with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, whose mandate was controversially extended under a Damascus-inspired constitutional amendment last year that was opposed notably by Paris and Washington.

Lahoud is also under fire over Hariri's killing, blamed by many in Lebanon on Damascus and its allies in Beirut.

Rice was also due to see parliament speaker Nabih Berri and former exiled Christian warlord Michel Aoun, Lebanese officials said.

"We have been thinking about this (visit) for a while. We had to pick the right moment. We needed to have a government to deal with," said a US official travelling with Rice.

Washington has hailed Lebanon's parliamentary elections in May and June as a triumph for democracy while warning that Syria maintained a network of intelligence agents and was bent upon maintaining influence in its neighbour.

Siniora, a former finance minister and close ally of Rafiq Hariri, unveiled a new 24-member cabinet Tuesday with Hezbollah member Mohammed Fneish as energy minister.

The US official said Rice would not meet Fneish and that the United States would not have contact "certainly on this trip," but added: "We will see how it goes in the future."

Hezbollah, backed by Damascus and Tehran, has rejected UN calls to lay down its weapons and called the question of disarmament an internal one.

The United States, which was at the forefront of international pressure which led to Syria's pullout of its troops from Lebanon in April, also continued to pressure Syria over its support for Hezbollah.

"Armed militias in Lebanon independent of the central government... are not a recipe for success and do not contribute to stability," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Thursday.

However, Syria's Prime Minister Nagi Otri was quoted by a Lebanese newspaper Thursday as saying disarming Hezbollah would constitute a threat to national security in Syria and transform Lebanon into "open territory" for Israel.

The Shiite militia, which continues to be involved in sporadic clashes with Israel on the tense border, exclusively patrols the formerly Israeli-occupied south.

Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in May 2000 after 22 years of occupation in the face of Hezbollah's armed campaign and remains technically at war with Lebanon and Syria.

The United States called on Lebanon's new government to fully implement UN Resolution 1559 calling for disarming Hezbollah's militia and accused Syria of continued meddling in Lebanese affairs.

"We urge the new Lebanese government to move toward full implementation of UNSCR 1559, including militia disarmament," US delegate William Brencick said during a UN Security Council debate..