Talks on Lebanon Pact Stalled as Christian Chief Storms Out

TAIF, Saudi Arabia —  Talks on a tentative accord for shifting power to Lebanon’s Muslim majority temporarily collapsed Thursday when a right-wing Christian leader stormed out, refusing to accept any plan that did not provide for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon.

The acrimonious, closed-door bargaining session, which followed an exhausting, round-the-clock series of meetings the night before, reflected Lebanese lawmakers’ increasing frustration over their failure to reach agreement on a permanent peace plan after nearly two weeks of negotiations.

Only hours before dawn Thursday, a special negotiating committee of parliamentary deputies reported that they had reached tentative accord on a political reform plan that would for the first time give Muslims an equal voice in Parliament and limit the powers of the Maronite Christian president.

But talks on putting the tentative agreement into writing broke down after five hours Thursday night when Georges Saade, head of the Lebanese Front and the leading right-wing Christian in Parliament, walked out of the session in response to new “conditions” proposed by Muslims.

The conditions reportedly included a new effort to wipe out the religious basis upon which Lebanon’s government has historically been built.

Saade, in a brief statement to reporters, did not identify the conditions that led to the breakdown in the talks. But he said they reached “basic and essential issues which cannot be accepted in any form whatsoever.”

Other sources close to the negotiations said the Christians’ objections arose when a Muslim deputy proposed to include in the agreement a plan to abolish religious sectarianism as the basis for political power in the Lebanese government. The tentative accord would have left that controversial issue to the new government.

Earlier, Saade also had vowed not to accept any political reform plan unless Parliament first settles on an acceptable timetable for withdrawal of the estimated 40,000 Syrian troops that now occupy about two-thirds of Lebanon.

After a marathon bargaining session, the committee of nine Christians and eight Muslims had reached a tentative accord on a wide-ranging plan for sharing power within Parliament and the Cabinet and boost the number of Muslim seats.

It would leave the Christian president as formal chief of the armed forces but would transfer to the Cabinet and the Sunni Muslim prime minister most actual authority over the army.