A cease-fire agreed to by all parties to the three-week-old war in Lebanon went into effect early this morning.
The truce was announced last night by Saudi Arabia’s special envoy Prince Bandar Sultan and Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam at a press conference in Damascus. The agreement officially took effect at 6 a.m.
Khaddam said contacts between Syrian President Hafez Assad and Saudi King Fahd as well as among the various parties to the conflict had resulted in the accord.
“As a result of these contacts and efforts,” he said, “an agreement has been reached to stop the war and fighting and to start a national dialogue between the conflicting parties.”
Both Khaddam and Bandar called on the Lebanese to work together to find a political settlement to the crisis “in a spirit of dialogue.”
A short time later, Lebanese Prime Minister Shafiq Wazzan made a statement over state radio saying, “May it be a blessed hour. We said it over and over again. Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough of misery. Enough of bloodshed. Enough of torture. Enough of destruction.
“This is the date all Lebanese have been hungry for a long time. Today we are at a new beginning, the end of wars and the beginning of sincere work at all levels for reconstruction.”
An American official said a preliminary meeting to discuss the details of a formal conference of Lebanon’s chief political and sectarian leaders would be held within a week “probably here” in Lebanon.
The formal conference is expected to open shortly in either Jiddah or Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, but it is unclear whether it will continue there for the months it is expected to take to get an agreement, or be transferred to a site inside Lebanon.
The delay in announcing the cease-fire was understood to be due partly to the late arrival of Bandar in Damascus and to the time necessary for him and Khaddam to go over the text of the accord.
