Lebanon hosts Arab leaders

Aims to defuse tension:

LEBANON: Lebanon planned a rare summit yesterday of regional leaders aimed at defusing tension over reports of an impending indictment against Hezbollah members for the murder of ex-Premier Rafiq Hariri.

The meeting between Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was hastily organized amid fears of Sunni-Shiite violence erupting in Lebanon should the UN court probing Hariri’s 2005 murder implicate the powerful Hezbollah.

Abdullah and Assad are to arrive together from Damascus and meet with Sleiman before attending a luncheon to which members of Lebanon’s unity government, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, have been invited.

“The whole visit is about containing the situation for the immediate future,” said Sahar Atrache, a Beirut-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think-tank.

“They are here to exert influence on their internal allies ... to prevent a real escalation.”

Assad will be visiting Lebanon for the first time since Hariri — father of current Prime Minister Saad Hariri — was assassinated in 2005, leading to a sharp downturn in relations between Damascus and Beirut.

Syria, as the main power-broker in Lebanon at the time, was widely blamed for the murder of the Sunni former premier, but it has consistently denied any involvement.

Relations have been on the mend since 2008, when diplomatic ties were established for the first time between Beirut and Damascus.

Saad Hariri has made four trips to Syria in the past eight months. Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of the slain Hariri and his son, has played a key role in the rapprochement between the two countries. BEIRUT, Friday, AFP