Report: Officials Set Stage for Hizbullah-Mustaqbal Dialogue to 'Limit Shiite-Sunni' Tension
Nader Hariri, who is the adviser of al-Mustaqbal movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri, has held talks with Speaker Nabih Berri's aide Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil to set the stage for the dialogue between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The daily said that the meeting between Nader Hariri and Khalil took place on Monday.
Local dailies published Monday quoted Speaker Nabih Berri as saying that contacts between him and the representatives of the two parties will become more active this week.
The current consultations are focusing on setting the agenda of the talks.
Al-Akhbar quoted a high-ranking official as saying that a date has not been set yet for the dialogue. But he expected the talks to take place before the holidays.
There are high hopes that the dialogue would set the stage for consensus on a new president.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since May when President Michel Suleiman's six-year term ended amid a failure to find a successor over differences between the rival March 8 and March 14 alliances on a compromise candidate.
The Hizbullah official ruled out a breakthrough on the presidential deadlock at this stage.
He told al-Akhbar that the dialogue between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal would currently be limited to “containing the tension between the Shiite and Sunni” sects.
The aide of Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hussein Khalil, and a member of the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc, MP Hassan Fadlallah, are likely to represent Hizbullah in the talks, while Nader Hariri and lawmaker Jamal al-Jarrah will be the Mustaqbal representatives.
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