Daily Star - Fillon offers helping hand for Lebanon's 2009 polls, November 22, 2008

France stands ready to assist Lebanon with key legislative elections planned next year, visiting French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Friday. "France is ready, if Lebanon so wishes, to provide technical support during the elections," Fillon said as he spoke with French and Lebanese business leaders on the second day of his official visit to Beirut.
Assistance could consist of helping organize the polls or providing observers as part of a European Union initiative, his office said.
The international community has said that it will closely be watching the legislative polls planned for the spring, when Hizbullah and its March 8 allies could gain a majority over their Western-backed March 14 rivals in Parliament .
During a joint news conference with Fillon at the Grand Serail, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said his Cabinet would work hard to run free and transparent parliamentary elections, which, he said, would express the people's will.
"Lebanon is still capable of overcoming all difficulties with its people's faith, coexistence, freedom, democracy, balance and openness," Siniora said.
Fillon hailed the recent establishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon but reiterated his view that this must be followed by concrete measures.
"The border between both countries needs to be delineated, controls along the border need to be strengthened and the issue of the Lebanese missing needs to be resolved," the premier said.
He was referring to hundreds of Lebanese who went missing during the country's 1975-1990 Civil War and who are thought to be held in Syrian prisons.
Syria held sway in Lebanese politics for nearly three decades until 2005 when it was forced to pull its troops from the country following the death of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri in a massive car bomb. Damascus has denied any role in the killing.
On Friday, Fillon visited Hariri's tomb in Downtown Beirut. He also met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hizbullah, in Ain al-Tineh.
Fillon, who was accompanied on his two-day trip by a delegation of businessmen, encouraged further investment by French companies in Lebanon, where he said the situation has stabilized since the Doha Accord in May put an end to a crippling 18-month political crisis.
"I encourage French investors to choose Lebanon," he said.
The premier wrapped up his two-day visit by traveling to South Lebanon to meet French soldiers serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Fillon was last in Lebanon in June when he accompanied President Nicolas Sarkozy on a trip to support newly elected President Michel Sleiman.
Also Friday, parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, Rafik's son, told reporters that France remains committed to the Special Tribunal to punish his father's killers, adding that those betting on Paris to change its policy were "mistaken."
"France did not change, we won't change and we are right," the MP added. - AFP, with The Daily Star