State Department Spokesman on Lebanese National Dialogue

Department of State

Daily Press Briefing                                                          
Sean McCormack‚ Spokesman                                                     
Washington, DC                                                
November 9, 2006       

 

Excerpts                                                        
                                           

QUESTION: Mr. Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the House of Lebanon was exerting lots of efforts in order to prevent a political chaos is meeting with the     
different political groups in there. Can I have your reading of this, what your comment is about his efforts and the progress of these meetings?              
                                                                       
MR. MCCORMACK: About Nabih Berri's meetings?            

 

QUESTION: Yes, sir.                                                            
                                                            
MR. MCCORMACK: That's a foul, asking me to comment on internal domestic politics in Lebanon.                                                          
                                                                        
QUESTION: You see the real (inaudible) involved, I mean and --                
                                                                       
MR. MCCORMACK: Look there's a lot of ferment in the Lebanese political system. It comes about as a result of a lot of different things, one of which is they 
are emerging from 20 years of -- more than 20 years of Syrian occupation. So they're trying to deal with some pretty fundamental issues, a lot of them     
centering around how can you have a political party that has its own militia and that drags us into regional conflict. That's a pretty central issue that they're dealing with.                                                          
                                                                 
So look, we support efforts at political reform and economic reform and Prime Minister Siniora's government. There's a lot of discussions being had in      
Lebanon right now. But we -- how those turn out are for the Lebanese people to decide. Our problem is -- our problem as well as the problem of others arises 
when you have external forces, either directly or indirectly through proxies, trying to manipulate the outcome of those political discussions in a way that's
detrimental to Lebanese democracy, the growth of Lebanese democracy. That's when you get into a problem. So in terms of political bargaining, it's going to
be up to the Lebanese people and the Lebanese political leaders to decide.    
                                                                       
Thanks. 

---