BEIRUT: The Lebanese Cabinet met at the Presidential Palace on Tuesday to discuss the most sensitive item on its agenda: the disarming of Hezbollah and the need to restrict control of weaponry to the state.
However, ministers faced pressure from Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, and his supporters amid external diplomatic counterpressures.
The session, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and attended by President Joseph Aoun, lasted for about five hours, with the proceedings shrouded in secrecy. It concluded with an announcement by Salam that the Cabinet had decided to continue the discussions, and to implement proposals presented by US envoy Tom Barrack, during their next meeting on Thursday. They will also ask the Lebanese army to develop a plan to restrict control of arms to the state by the end of the year, and present it to the Cabinet by the end of this month.
A political observer told Arab News: “Lebanon has received foreign diplomatic calls to refrain from delaying the approval of the arms-restriction clause and setting a timetable for its implementation. Otherwise, Lebanon will be left to its own fate, in the absence of any guarantees that Israel will, in return, withdraw from the positions it still occupies within Lebanese territory.”
