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Lebanese Opposition Leader Backs Army Chief for President

[New York Times] Thanassis Cambanis and Nada Bakri - The political logjam over Lebanon's vacant presidency was broken Thursday when Christian leader Michel Aoun, who was seeking the presidency himself and is backed by Syria, announced his support for Gen. Michel Suleiman, the army's chief of staff, as a compromise candidate accepted by the pro-Western alliance. Lebanon has teetered on the edge of factional violence over the question of who would succeed the former president, Emile Lahoud, who was widely considered a tool of Syria. Gen. Suleiman was appointed army chief of staff in 1998, during the Syrian occupation, and was for a long time maligned by the governing coalition for being too close to Syria. "The Syrians did not want to go to Annapolis," said Talal Atrissi, a political analyst and sociologist at Lebanese University. "The Syrians traded their participation, which did not cost them anything, with a deal on the Lebanese presidency." Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said Syria won a concession from the U.S. and France in exchange for its appearance at Annapolis. The Syrian government does not expect real progress on negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights, Khashan said, but it now expects the U.S. and France to give Syria more leeway to influence Lebanese affairs.
2007-11-30 01:00:00
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