Beirut, Lebanon (AKI) - Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, is due in Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanese prime minister Fuad Siniora. Solana is expected to spend just a few hours in the capital, but will not call on president Emile Lahoud, underlining Brussels' aim to keep the pro-Syrian president politically isolated. The ambassadors of all EU countries in Lebanon have decided not to take part in the traditional reception at the presidential palace on 22 November [the anniversary of Lebanon's independence] but to attend a military parade organised by the defence ministry.

In recent days, Britain - which currently holds the rotating EU presidency - has announced that Lahoud, along with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, would be excluded from the upcoming Euro-Mediterranean summit in Barcelona, issuing a ministerial-level invitation only.

For some time most of the political parties in Lebanon have been calling for Lahoud to step down and he has suffered a barrage of criticism from home and abroad for his suspected involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and for his close ties with the Syrian regime.

It was thanks to strong pressure from Damascus that in September 2004 the Beirut parliament approved an amendment to the constitution which allowed the extention of the presidential mandate until autumn 2007.

"President Lahoud will remain in his post and continue resisting pressure until the end of his mandate," read an official statement from the president's palace.

A source close to Lahoud has been quoted by local dailies as saying: "the situation has reached unacceptable levels with the European Union bowing to the position of the United States to besiege the president. The fact that the EU representative Solana does not want to meet Lahoud risks complicating Lebanon's internal situation."