Beirut, January 20: US Mideast envoy George Mitchell met with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday and reiterated Washington’s commitment to the stalled Middle East peace process and Lebanon’s independence.
“Senator Mitchell conveyed the commitment of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which includes peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab states,” the US embassy in Lebanon said in a statement.
It added that the US envoy in his meeting with Prime Minister Hariri late Tuesday confirmed that Washington would not support the full naturalisation as Lebanese citizens of an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.
The vast majority of these Palestinian refugees want to go back to their original homes, but are denied the right to return by Israel.
“Senator Mitchell reiterated that Lebanon would play a key role in the long-term effort to build lasting and comprehensive peace and stability in the Middle East region and that there would not be a lasting solution reached at Lebanon’s expense,” the statement said.
Mitchell was headed to Damascus following his meeting with Sleiman and was also due to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Mitchell’s latest Mideast tour comes less than a week after US President Barack Obama’s national security adviser James Jones held talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders aimed at furthering US-led peace efforts.
Obama has been struggling to get the two sides back to the negotiating table since he assumed office nearly a year ago but has thus far failed to get Israel to completely halt settlements or secure Arab concessions to Tel Aviv.
The Palestinians have said they will not resume talks — suspended a year ago during Israel’s war on Gaza — until Israel halts all illegal settlement building in the Palestinian occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel has declared a 10-month moratorium on new settlement projects but has excluded mostly Palestinian East Jerusalem, public buildings and projects already under way. The Palestinians have rejected the move as insufficient.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese government has reiterated its call for Palestinian groups outside refugee camps to disarm, saying the issue was “not up for negotiation.”
“Lebanese sovereignty is not open to negotiation,” Information Minister Tareq Mitri said after a cabinet meeting late on Tuesday.
“We should implement the decision to disarm Palestinians outside of refugee camps and deal with the problem of arms and security within the camps,” he said, referring to a 2006 accord on disarmament between rival Lebanese leaders.
On Monday, the leader of a Palestinian group said it would not disarm outside of the refugee camps but was willing to discuss where in Lebanon it holds its arms.
“Palestinian arms inside or outside the camps are part of our resistance against the Zionist enemy,” said Fatah al-Intifada chief Said Mussa, who is also known as “Abu Mussa.”
“The presence of these arms does not affect Lebanese security,” Abu Mussa said, offering to talk to the Lebanese government “about the positioning of our arms.”
“Our arms outside the camps serve the purpose of resisting Israel, in case it attacks southern Lebanon again,” Abu Mussa said, in reference to a 2006 war that Israel launched on south Lebanon.
Ramez Mustafa of the Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) reiterated the view that Palestinian arms outside camps in Lebanon were indispensable to the fight against Israel.
“The presence of Palestinian arms is part of the resistance against Israeli threats,” said Mustafa, the PFLP-GC’s Lebanon representative.
“The arms are not to be used in Lebanese affairs,” he added, saying the groups were willing to discuss the issue with Lebanese leaders face to face.
By long-standing convention the Lebanese army does not enter Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps, leaving security inside in the hands of Palestinians.
—Agencies