Fadlallah laments standstill despite talk of dialogue

Source: Daily Star, 12-04-2008
BEIRUT: Senior Muslim cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said on Friday that the Lebanese political crisis remains at a standstill despite widespread talk among both the opposition and pro-government alliances of commitment to the Arab initiative, which he said was "a point of contestation."
"Even some of the larger countries now ... have no problem freezing the presidential issue, to ensure the government remains in power," Fadlallah said during his weekly Friday sermon at the Imam al-Hasanayn Mosque in Haret Hreik.
Fadlallah said Arab nations are divided on the Lebanese issue and noted that the proposal for an Arab foreign ministers meeting to discuss Lebanon had no effect on Syrian-Lebanese relations. "The language of incriminatory enmity is not the language of friendship and openness," he added.
The Arab three-point initiative to solve the 16-month-old political deadlock calls for the immediate election of the head of the Lebanese Army General Michel Suleiman as the new president, the formation of a national unity government and the drafting of a new electoral law.