DAMASCUS (AFP) — Lebanon's presidential frontrunner, Michel Sleiman, has contacted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country remains a key player in Beirut's crisis-hit politics, a minister said Wednesday.
General Sleiman, who is army chief, "recently telephoned President Assad," Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told a press conference.
"He has also called the defence minister (Hassan Turkmani) and the chief of staff (Ali Habib). We welcome these calls," said the minister, whose country withdrew troops from Lebanon in 2005 after an almost three-decade deployment.
Bilal said Sleiman's ties with the Syrian leadership were "very longstanding" and "brotherly".
In Beirut's political crisis, Sleiman has emerged as the consensus candidate for the post of president left vacant since the pro-Syrian incumbent Emile Lahoud stepped down in November at the end of his term.
The Arab League has proposed a three-point plan calling for electing Sleiman as president, forming a national unity government in which no one party has veto power and adopting a new electoral law.
The Western-backed parliamentary majority in Beirut has accepted the bid but the opposition, led by the pro-Syrian Hezbollah, demands it be granted a third of the seats in a new government so the opposition can have veto power.
Bilal said Damascus welcomed the statement issued on Sunday after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that called for Sleiman to be elected by MPs at their next scheduled parliamentary session on February 11.
"Syria wants Lebanon to make progress towards an overall settlement," said the minister.
The minister also condemned the riots on Sunday in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut in which seven people were killed and dozens wounded as protests degenerated into clashes with the army.
"What happened in Beirut was painful and sad," said Bilal, blasting the "snipers and assassins ... of young people who were demonstrating against power cuts".
In a verbal attack on Washington, Syria's information minister charged that the US administration was spreading "chaos" around the Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza and Iraq.
Washington was "blocking ... France's initiative and Syrian action aimed at reaching an understanding in Lebanon" on breaking the deadlock in parliament on electing a president, the minister charged.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Damascus opposed, had sparked "destruction and disorder in Iraq whose consequences are being felt throughout the region", said Bilal.
The United States, in turn, accuses Syria of meddling in the affairs of its neighbours by stirring insecurity in Lebanon and allowing insurgents to cross its borders into Iraq.
In Kuwait, meanwhile, visiting Arab League chief Amr Mussa on Wednesday warned Lebanon's feuding factions that any further delay in electing a new president will damage the country's stability.
"It is essential that a new president is elected as soon as possible. Any delay in electing a president is a blow to Lebanon's stability," Mussa told a news conference after talks with Kuwaiti leaders.
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