Siniora: Future-Hezbollah dialogue will be held very soon

BEIRUT: A first round of talks between the Future Movement and Hezbollah will be held “very soon,” former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Friday, a move that is likely to ease sectarian tensions fueled by the raging war in Syria.

“Matters concerning the Future-Hezbollah dialogue are on the right track,” Siniora told The Daily Star. “A first round of this dialogue will be held very soon.”

He said the planned Future-Hezbollah talks are primarily aimed at defusing sectarian tensions and facilitating the election of a president.

Strained ties between the two powerful rival factions, exacerbated by Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria, have at times put the country on edge.

Siniora spoke after he and Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk returned Friday from Saudi Arabia, where they held talks with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri ahead of the upcoming talks with Hezbollah.

In addition to Siniora and Machnouk, a Future delegation that met with Hariri at his residence in Riyadh also included former MPs Ghattas Khoury and Bassem Sabeh and Nader Hariri, chief of Hariri’s staff.

The talks focused on the proposed dialogue with Hezbollah and how to end the stalemate that has left Lebanon without a president for more than six months.

Future MP Ammar Houri said the atmosphere was “positive” for talks with Hezbollah. “Efforts are underway to agree on an agenda for the dialogue,” he told The Daily Star.

The Central News Agency quoted political sources close to the Future Movement and Hezbollah as saying the first round of talks would be held between Nader Hariri and Hussein Khalil, a political aide to Hezbollah head Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, under the sponsorship of Speaker Nabih Berri at Ain al-Tineh on Dec. 29.

Future MP Mohammad Hajjar said the proposed talks with Hezbollah were designed to protect Lebanon from the reverberations of the war in Syrian, now in its fourth year.

“We are ready for a dialogue aimed at protecting the country by discussing several items, including how to spare Lebanon the repercussions of what is happening in the region, with Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syria war, and working to end the paralysis in the state institutions in the absence of a president,” he told the Voice of Lebanon radio station.

The Future delegation’s visit came a day after Hariri held talks at his residence in Riyadh with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, who returned to Beirut Thursday night, ending a weeklong official visit to Saudi Arabia.Hariri and Geagea stressed the need to expedite the presidential vote, defuse political tensions and preserve stability and security in Lebanon.

Geagea, on his second visit to Riyadh this year, held talks with senior Saudi officials dominated by the presidential election deadlock.

“Geagea discussed with senior Saudi officials how to end the presidential vacuum,” sources close to the LF told The Daily Star. The sources said if any regional consultations, mainly between Saudi Arabia and Iran via France, were held over the Lebanese presidential crisis, this would be done in “full coordination with Geagea and [former] Prime Minister Saad Hariri.”

“The discussions in Saudi Arabia focused on Geagea’s initiative in June to break the presidential deadlock,” the sources said, referring to the LF leader’s proposal to either withdraw from the presidency race, contest the election with MP Michel Aoun, or to search for a neutral candidate who does not belong to either the March 8 or March 14 camp.

Geagea is the March 14-backed presidential candidate, while Aoun is supported by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies for the top Christian post.

The Saudi officials did not bring up names of any presidential candidates during their meetings with Geagea, the sources said.

They added that the talks in Riyadh also touched on the war in Syria. “The two sides stressed that there can be no solution to the conflict in Syria while Bashar Assad stayed in power. The solution begins with Bashar Assad stepping down,” the sources said. On attempts to bring Geagea and his arch political foe, Aoun, together, the sources said: “Efforts are still ongoing to make a meeting between the two leaders productive.”

Geagea also discussed with Saudi officials protecting Lebanese interests, including the possibility of exporting apples to the kingdom, the sources said.

Meanwhile, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani is scheduled to visit Lebanon in the coming days as part of a regional tour that will also take him to Syria and Iraq for talks centering on the ISIS threat.

In Beirut, Larijani will hold talks with Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Nasrallah. The main objective of Larijani’s trip is to discuss with officials in the three countries the threat posed by ISIS.

“I think that the trip will be focused on the ending the crisis posed by Daesh in the region,” Hossein Sheikholeslam, a foreign policy adviser to Larijani, told The Daily Star by phone, using the Arabic acronym of ISIS.

“It’s going to be about supporting the will of the people to implement what they want. And mainly about the resolution of the crisis by peaceful means of cooperation and also about supporting the resistance,” he said.

Asked whether Larijani would also discuss the presidential deadlock with Lebanese officials, he said: “Lebanon is the least problematic matter in the region. The much bigger problem is in Daesh and the much bigger problem is in Palestine and the way the Israelis are treating the Palestinian issue.”

Larijani’s visit comes amid a flurry of stepped up political activity by French, Russian and European Union officials who visited Lebanon last week in an attempt to push rival Lebanese leaders to resolve the presidential crisis. – Additional reporting by Kristin Dailey