Lebanon Loosing Opportunities in Age of Initiatives

Source: Al Manar TV, 01-04-2008
The 20th Arab gathering has ended and Damascus overcame the challenge of the summit's success and is expected to invest its presidency of the Arab summit through tackling the many Arab issues, on top of which is Lebanon's.
Lebanon has lost two golden opportunities to address its ongoing political crisis as well as the ruling bloc's strained ties with Damascus, simply by boycotting the summit, says Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister.
According to veteran politician Salim Hoss, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, differences with Syria should have given the ruling bloc impetus to head to Damascus and address Arab leaders to mobilize their positions in favor of the Lebanese cause.
"After the summit, I don't believe that there will be another opportunity. If this status quo continued unchanged until the year 2009, we would have reached the worst situation yet," Hoss warned.
Observes say that Lebanon would remain subject to initiatives including the Arab initiative, Speaker Nabih Berri's initiative and other initiatives based on reuniting the Arab position, especially the expected Algerian fence mending effort between Damascus and Cairo.