UNITED NATIONS, 6 April 2007 — Lebanon’s Parliament speaker has invited Saudi Arabia to broker a deal over an international tribunal to try suspects in the killing of a former prime minister, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday.
Divisions over the court are driving Lebanon’s worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, pitting the government against an opposition led by Hezbollah.
The invitation by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri — an opposition leader and Syrian ally — comes amid heightened Saudi diplomacy in the region including in Sudan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Berri has called for a special conference to break the deadlock over terms of an international tribunal in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others on Feb. 14, 2005.
“If it is agreeable to parties, I am willing to dispatch Mr. Nicolas Michel (the UN legal counsel) to that conference,” Ban told reporters after informing the Security Council of the initiative.
“It is crucially important at this time to establish at an early date, as urged by the Security Council, a special tribunal into the assassination case of former Prime Minister Hariri,” said Ban, who recently visited the Middle East including Lebanon.
The UN Security Council last month extended the mandate of a UN investigator into the case until June 2008 and has established the framework for an international tribunal, hopeful the Lebanese Parliament can agree on a law establishing the court on its own. Without a Lebanese deal, the Security Council would have to invoke extraordinary measures, which it is hesitant to do.
But one Western diplomat said the chances were increasing that the Security Council would invoke a so-called Chapter 7 resolution to force the tribunal.
The Lebanese opposition says it supports the tribunal in principle but wants to ensure it cannot be exploited politically.
