08/01/2011 Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem stressed on Saturday that the Resistance party has fully played its role, emphasizing that the responsibility now lies on the other party to guarantee the success of Saudi and Syrian mediation to solve the Lebanese crisis.
Speaking to Lebanese daily As-Safir, Sheikh Qassem said that Prime Minister Saad Hariri knows what to do, stressing that the ball was in his court.
"We are pushing towards this solution because it’s the best for everyone, but in agreements there isn't anything called an 80 percent or 90 percent success. They would either be implemented or not, meaning it’s either white or black," Sheikh Qassem said.
"We are now waiting for the official Syrian and Saudi announcement that the settlement succeeded," Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General said. "Nobody can set a specific timing for such announcement because there are some details which depend on the mediators’ follow up," his eminence added.
Sheikh Qassem said that the final settlement should be announced soon, adding that there was a conflict between announcing the settlement and releasing the indictment in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, given that its release would change everything since what precedes the indictment is not the same as what follows it. That’s why accelerating the solution is in everybody’s interest."
08/01/2011 A few hours after ending his private vacation and returning to the Lebanese capital, and a few hours after announcing that the Saudi-Syrian agreement was done a long time ago and throwing the responsibility on others, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri flew to New York where he met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and is expected to meet later on Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz for the second time in less than ten days.
According to press reports, Clinton has discussed growing tensions in Lebanon with the country's Prime Minister and Saudi King Abdullah at separate meetings in New York.
A source who attended the Clinton-Hariri meeting said that the US Secretary of State reaffirmed strong US support for Lebanon's independence and for the work of the UN-backed tribunal that is investigating the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former PM Rafiq Hariri.
"Secretary Clinton expressed her strong support for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon," the source told AFP. Clinton also "expressed very clearly her support for the Hariri tribunal," the source added.
The secretary of state left the hotel saying her talks had been "excellent" but no other official details were given.
Just after she left, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir, was seen going to the Hariri suite.
In a related development, the US State Department said the first US ambassador to be posted in Damascus since 2005 was expected to arrive in the country by the end of the month.
Clinton swore in Robert Ford on Friday, and her spokesman Philip Crowley said the new ambassador would be in Damascus "before the end of January."
The United States withdrew its ambassador after the 2005 assassination of Hariri.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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