Rice visits Lebanon to bolster new president

"I am looking forward to going to Lebanon to meet with the president and to talk with various Lebanese officials," Rice told reporters on her way to Beirut from Tel Aviv. "But I am also going to express the United States support for Lebanese democracy, for Lebanese sovereignty."She said she wanted to discuss "how the United States can support the institutions of a free Lebanon including the work that we do to support the armed forces, to support the Lebanese economy and the Lebanese civil society."Her visit, under tight security, comes amid continued bickering between the US-backed ruling bloc in parliament and the Hezbollah-led opposition, supported by Syria and Iran, over the formation of a new cabinet of national unity.Rice is due to meet newly-elected President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, parliament speaker and opposition stalwart Nabih Berri and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.An Arab-brokered agreement sealed in the Qatari capital led to the May election of former army chief Sleiman as president, putting an end to 18 months of political stalemate that brought the country to the brink of civil war.The deal gave the opposition the power to veto key government decisions and wider representation in a new cabinet line-up, with 11 seats to be allocated to the opposition, 16 to the majority and three to be appointed by Sleiman.But efforts by Siniora to form a new cabinet have hit snags as rival factions disagreed over who should head the key defense, interior, finance and foreign affairs ministries.Siniora, a Sunni Muslim who was reappointed premier by Sleiman, said at the weekend that he hoped "to be able to make progress at the beginning of next week". UN chief Ban Ki-moon, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, called on Sunday for the speedy formation of the government in Lebanon, where tensions remain high with sporadic clashes erupting between rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims.Rice, who was in Beirut after a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank, last visited Lebanon in July 2006 during the devastating war between Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel.At the time, she earned widespread criticism in the Arab world and elsewhere for describing the conflict as "the birth pangs" of a new Middle East.Her visit on Monday comes amid a thaw in relations between France and Syria, the former powerbroker in Lebanon which still has strong influence in the country despite pulling out its troops in 2005 after a three-decade presence.Rice last week expressed some reservations about the rapprochement but at the weekend expressed confidence that France would send the right message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when he visits Paris next month."I don't have any doubt that any contact with Bashir al-Assad will be from our point of view contacts that communicate the right messages on what are shared French and American goals ... in the Middle East," she told reporters.Meanwhile, Hezbollah is expected to repatriate soon two Israeli soldiers who were captured by the guerrillas in 2006 in a raid that triggered the war, the father of one of the men said, and voicing fears however that they may be dead.Lebanese media said the swap would involve Israel releasing four or five Lebanese prisoners including Samir Kantar, current serving a life sentence for killing two men and a four-year-old girl in a 1979 attack in northern Israel.Photo: AFP