Murr: Aoun's Bloc Blocks Presidential Elections

by **Admin** Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:42 pm

MP Michel Murr on Wednesday accused Gen. Michel Aoun's Change and Reform Bloc of blocking presidential elections, targeting specifically Maronite MPs of the group.

"Our bloc includes politicians who have become disgusting to the people. It is blocking the presidency. I say the block is blocking, not Gen. Aoun. Certain MPs within the bloc are more responsible than Gen. Aoun for blocking the presidency," Murr told reporters.

"Gen. Aoun heads the bloc, and I'm not saying he is to be held responsible, but the bloc is. Where are the Maronite MPs? Why do they accept to keep the presidency vacant?" he asked.

Murr made the remarks after receiving Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Sergei Pukin.

Murr said an agreement on a general election law could be "reached in 15 minutes if we approached the issue with a spirit of national responsibility."

"If we proceed with conditions and counter-conditions there would be no elections, neither today nor in 2009."
Murr said any pan-Arab rapprochement "would help in overcoming the crisis, but domestic consensus is the base to any settlement."

Pukin, in answering a question as to whether Russia would play a role to narrow the gap separating the feuding factions, said: "I have no information on this issue."

However, he explained that "the foreign minister of Russia could visit the region. If he does, it would be in line with Russian efforts to settle the conflict in the region, be it at the Lebanese level or at the level of the security deterioration in Palestine."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora arrived in Dakar, Senegal, on Wednesday to represent Lebanon at the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which opens on Thursday. Siniora was expected to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon late Wednesday.

The OIC summit will bring together representatives of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other states that are said to be involved in either mediating or exacerbating Lebanon's political crisis.

But while the representatives of these countries could meet on the sidelines of the summit, few people in Beirut expect them to produce recommendations that would help resolve Lebanon's crisis ahead of an upcoming Arab League summit, scheduled for March 29-30 in Damascus.

Lebanon is still awaiting an official invitation to the Arab summit. Arab League chief Amr Moussa told the BBC Arabic television Tuesday he was ready to deliver the invitation to Lebanon as soon as he receives it.

But Siniora has said that Lebanon will not accept to be invited through the Arab League.

Damascus is not likely to send a minister to Beirut to deliver an invitation to the Siniora government, which represents Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority.

As the political crisis dragged on in Beirut, Russia and France rejected all foreign meddling in Lebanese affairs.
"There should be absolutely no foreign interference in Lebanon's political crisis," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a joint news conference with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner in Paris on Tuesday. He added that Russia was using its regional influence to help solve the crisis in Beirut.
"The recent postponement of a House session to elect a new president for Lebanon must not take us to despair," Lavrov said.

For his part, Kouchner reiterated Lavrov's call for no foreign meddling in Lebanese affairs and said France is still determined to work with Syria to achieve a solution in Beirut.

In a separate development Wednesday, Lebanese Forces (LF) boss Samir Geagea said after a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch inWashington that the United States is against naturalizing Palestinians refugees in Lebanon.

"There is no foreign plan to naturalize Palestinians in Lebanon," he said.

"It is true that the issue of Palestinian refugees is linked to the formation of a Palestinian state, but whatever the fate of the refugees will be, it is clear that they will not be naturalized in Lebanon," he added.

Geagea told reporters that he discussed with US officials the issue of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms and the possibility of placing the occupied territory under UN custody.

"We also discussed the issue of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli and Syrian jails and what needs to be done to end this problem," he said.

Geagea denied that the US was planning to engage Syria in the near future. "The US position on Syria has not changed until further notice," he said.