BEIRUT: Hezbollah said yesterday it was ready to open a new page with its US-backed rivals after losing Lebanon’s election but would wait to see what they offer before deciding on joining any coalition government.
Hezbollah’s rivals, led by Sunni Muslim leader Saad Hariri, won Sunday’s election against the resistance group and its allies. The vote capped four years of crises that took Lebanon to the verge of civil war last year.
“Hezbollah has decided to turn the page on the last phase and open a new page for the coming stage,” Deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem told Reuters in an interview.
“We will also behave in a highly positive manner and cooperate with the other side.” He said it would be up to the other side to show good will.
“We will wait for what the other side offers. If it decides on a program, a vision and a method that is different from the past and that opens new horizons, they will find us by their side,” Kassem said. “But if issues remain as before at a state of tension and monopoly (of power), then we will take a stand.”
Hezbollah and its allies had veto power in the outgoing Cabinet, a contentious point at the heart of much of the political wrangling over the past four years. Kassem said the group and its allies had not yet agreed a common position on the new government. He would not comment on whether veto power would be a condition for their participation. “We don’t have a predetermined or final position,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s most influential Shiite cleric has told former President Jimmy Carter that President Barack Obama’s speech reaching out to Muslims had strong points, but people are waiting for real results.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah’s comments came during a meeting Tuesday night at his office with Carter who was in Lebanon to monitor the elections.
Fadlallah, who was widely believed to have been the spiritual leader of the militant Hezbollah group in the 1980s, is a harsh critic of US policies in the Middle East which are biased toward Israel.
In another development, Syrian President Bashar Assad urged Lebanese leaders to work together, in a telephone call yesterday to his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman. “He (Bashar) praised the spirit of entente that prevails in Lebanon, especially after the election,” a statement from Suleiman’s office said.
