Prime Minister Rashid Karami arrived in Damascus Sunday to join talks to reconcile Moslem leaders, part of a fresh Syrian push to ‘close the Lebanese crisis file,’ officials said.
State-run Damascus radio said the Sunni Moslem prime minister would hold talks with Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam before a Syrian-sponsored conference of Moslem leaders Monday in Damascus.
Official sources said Syria hoped to forge a new pact among the Moslem leaders before a grand political settlement between Christians and Moslems in an attempt to end 10 years of factional conflict in Lebanon.
‘Syria will exert all possible efforts to close the Lebanese crisis file,’ Khaddam told reporters on the eve of Karami’s arrival.
Lebanon’s Moslem community has been split since the Shiite Moslem Amal militia and Druze Moslem Progressive Socialist Party crushed the Sunni Moslem Mourabitoun movement in 16 hours of fierce fighting in April.
The so-called government of national unity virtually collapsed under the weight of internal squabbles in December and exists in name only.
Syria backed the formation of the government in April last year.
Karami’s departure coincided with sporadic sniper fire across Beirut’s Green Line battle zone dividing the Moslem west from the Christian east, and intermittent fighting between Druze militiamen and Lebanese soldiers stationed in the nearby Shouf mountains.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was supposed to meet Shiite Moslem leader Nabih Berri at Khaddam’s Damascus office later Sunday, official sources said. There was no immediate word on whether the Druze warlord had arrived in Damascus.
Official Beirut radio said Lebanon’s Moslem spiritual leader, Mufti Hassan Khaled, would travel to Damascus late Sunday or early Monday. Several Moslem warlords and political leaders have already met with Syrian President Hafez Assad.
Berri has been conferring with officials in Damascus since Friday and Shiite Parliamentary Speaker Hussein Husseini arrived Saturday before a new round of talks with Khaddam, radio reports said.
‘We are here to seek the resumption of the Syrian initiative in Lebanon and rebuild the national detente,’ said Husseini after meeting with Khaddam Saturday.
‘We must take rapid steps because things can no longer stay like this,’ said Husseini, in reference to insecurity in west Beirut.
‘The talks focused on the security situation in Lebanon in particular and ways of improving it and resuming the process of national concensus,’ the Syrian news agency said of a three-hour session between Berri and Assad Saturday.
