Monday, January 28, 2008

Arab FMs Couldn’t Reach Any Accord over Lebanon, Gaza


Al-Manar

"28/01/2008 As in every Arab Foreign Ministers meeting, no agreement or decisive decision was oozed. Once again Arab FMs couldn’t reach any agreement over the crisis they are discussing.

Arab foreign ministers urged Lebanon's feuding factions on Sunday to resolve their long-running political crisis and elect a new president to fill a post that has been empty for two months.

The ministers were gathered for talks in Cairo on the Lebanese crisis and the situation in Gaza where Palestinians were continuing to cross into Egypt after the Israeli occupation government imposed a tight blockade over them in the Gaza Strip.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa has held several rounds of talks with political leaders in Lebanon to spur them to elect a new president and end the crisis which has left the country without a president since November 24. On January 5 he proposed a three-point Arab initiative calling for army Chief General Michel Sleiman to be elected president, the formation of a national unity government in which no one party has veto power, and the adoption of a new electoral law.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the ministers urged all sides in the dispute to vote for Sleiman in a new parliamentary session set for February 11, the 13th attempt to choose a president. They also called on the ruling bloc and the Lebanese national opposition to hold discussions to reach an accord on the formation of a unity government.

"What is needed is a consensus solution, not the opinion of this or that," Moussa told a news conference after the meeting, which lasted more than seven hours.

Meanwhile, Foreign ministers said Monday that Israel was fully responsible for the deterioration in the Gaza Strip and demanded the Jewish state immediately lift its blockade, open crossing points and allow humanitarian supplies to reach the people. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have traveled into Egypt in recent days after breaking through the Gaza-Egypt border fence. The breakthrough happened days after Israel announced it was stopping fuel shipments to Gaza.

"Israel, as an occupation power, is fully responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian territories and should immediately stop all its continued aggressions against the civilians and end the blockade and the collective punishment policy," said a statement issued by the ministers at the end of their meeting in Cairo early Monday.

The foreign ministers also urged the UN Security Council to "shoulder its responsibility to stop (the Israeli) aggression and lift the siege off Gaza and protect its people and their right in accordance with the international laws." "

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Hey eunuchs, how about your own responsibilities? I forgot, Miss Rice would be upset if you shouldered any responsibilities.

Tfu on all of you!

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