Thursday, February 02, 2006

Ministers End Boycott

I hardly have any time today to write something substantial on this, but since this is basically just in (for me at least), it's worth a mention.

Five Shi'ite Muslim ministers returned to Lebanon's government on Thursday, ending a seven-week boycott that had paralysed the country, after the prime minister declared Hizbollah guerrillas a national resistance.

"After the position taken by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora ... the leaderships of Hizbollah and the Amal movement have decided to return their representatives to participation in the government meetings," senior Amal official and member of parliament Ali Hassan Khalil told a press conference.

The joint announcement by pro-Syrian Hizbollah and Amal, Lebanon's main Shi'ite parties, is expected to ease a political crisis that has hobbled decision-making in the government.

But the decision came too late for the Shi'ites to join Thursday's cabinet meeting, which is being held without them.

...

In comments to parliament earlier on Thursday, Siniora said Hizbollah had always been considered a resistance organisation, but made no mention of the word militia.

"We have never called and will never call the resistance by any other name but the resistance and it is a national resistance and we will not use any other expression to describe it but national resistance," he said to applause.


posted by Lazarus, 10:55 AM

4 Comments:

  • Score another victory to the Syrian camp.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:51 AM  

  • lebanon independance has died since joujou pushed the hezbollah and amal inside the government

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:11 PM  

  • Just in time to ask for a ministerial vote on Lebanon's diplomatic relations with Denmark I guess.

    By Blogger Ms Levantine, at 12:34 PM  

  • The way I read this is that HA wants to ease the tension now for 2 reasons: 1.) February 14th. 2.)Baabda-Aley.
    1.) PR move no more. You cannot disagree with the majority team on February 14th or they'll blame you for the assassination.
    2.) HA will back Aoun's candidate and that is sure to create some tension in the realtionship with majority team, so ease a little bit now so things don't go out of control then.

    By Blogger Jamal, at 6:15 AM  

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