New UN resolution on Lebanon 'in the works'

Daily Star, New UN resolution on Lebanon 'in the works', October 11, 2007

The UN Security Council may soon issue a new resolution concerning Lebanon and appoint a prosecutor for the Special Tribunal covering the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, well-informed UN sources said late on Tuesday. "We have some very good nominees for the position and we expect the identity of the tribunal's prosecutor to be announced in the next few weeks. We are on the right track," a source said. UN Security Council Resolution 1757, which established the mixed Lebanese-international court, was passed on May 30, after Lebanon's feuding parties failed to do so themslves. Meanwhile, US sources inside of the UN told London's Al-Hayat newspaper that a new resolution concerning Lebanon was a "quite feasible option." "However," sources said, "we are still debating over the content of such a resolution. Also the timing for the release of the resolution is yet to be discussed." According to the same sources, the resolution will be based on "evidence forwarded to the UN Security Council about Syria's violation of UN Resolution 1701, especially concerning the smuggling of arms to Hizbullah." Resolution 1701 put an end to the summer 2006 war with Israel and banned arms shipment to the resistance. On Wednesday, An-Nahar newspaper reported that Prime Minister Fouad Siniora sent UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa the latest updates on Fatah al-Islam's alleged links with Syria as well as Hizbullah's armaments. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said at the end of a Cabinet session on Tuesday evening that the memorandums contained "information obtained by Lebanese Army intelligence services and the intelligence unit of the Internal Security Forces about armaments in the country and the situation at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in North Lebanon." Tackling similar issues, the leader of the parliamentary majority, MP Saad Hariri, urged the UN to step up its condemnation of political violence in Lebanon as the country struggles to elect a president. At a meeting with Ban on Tuesday, Hariri raised the issue of the string of assassinations which have targeted members of his March 14 bloc. "We asked for a more hardened position from the UN in face of those assassinations and what's happening in Lebanon," Hariri said after meeting Ban. He also called on the international community to "move on those who commit these crimes in a very swift way." "We'll be very supportive, obviously," said the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad . "We want the presidential election in Lebanon to take place in a timely manner. We want no interference in the process by outsiders in electing a president." The Bush administration, pressing a campaign of diplomatic isolation of Syria, has repeatedly accused it of trying to destabilize Lebanon. Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, who met Hariri Tuesday, said he hoped elections were held in a "timely and an amicable manner." Failure to elect a president before current President Emile Lahoud's term ends could prompt the outgoing head of state to name an interim administration, setting the stage for the rise of two rival governments. The March 14 bloc had hoped to elect one of its own members to the post in the first presidential election since Syrian troops were forced to leave Lebanon in 2005 after Hariri's assassination. "When you have somebody trying to affect or interfere with trying to elect a president in Lebanon and trying to push his own agenda for a president that [he] is close to, let's say, Syria or other countries, we refuse that," Hariri said.