Lebanon PM to visit Iran amid political crisis

Nov 23, 2010 |

BEIRUT

Tags:

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri will make his first official visit to Iran this weekend when he will meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other officials, a government official said on Tuesday.

The visit on Saturday and Sunday comes amid a tense political standoff between Hariri's pro-Western camp and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah over a UN tribunal probing the 2005 assassination of Mr Hariri's father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is expected to implicate high-ranking Hezbollah officials in the murder but the party has warned against such a scenario, prompting fears of a sectarian conflict between Hariri's Sunni supporters and the Shiite Hezbollah.

Mr Hariri was killed in a massive seaside bombing that prompted international condemnation and forced Syria — also a supporter of Hezbollah — to withdraw its troops from Lebanon following a 29-year presence.

Mr Saad Hariri's trip to Iran comes a little over a month after Mr Ahmadinejad made a similar visit to Lebanon where he was given a hero's welcome by Hezbollah supporters.

The militant party fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006 and is considered a proxy of Iran which provides it with military and financial support.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/43756" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f14ad6476350461ed9c87189ced86850" value="form-f14ad6476350461ed9c87189ced86850" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85647509" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>