Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam met with Lebanese leaders today in a diplomatic offensive aimed at narrowing the differences between Moslems and Christians on the issues of the fragmented Lebanese Army, security and political reforms.
Khaddam, on his first visit here since Lebanon’s cancellation of the 1983 troop withdrawal agreement with Israel, met with President Amin Gemayel and Prime Minister Rashid Karami before receiving Christian and Moslem Cabinet ministers separately.
Asked after meetings late tonight whether a comprehensive security plan had been reached, Khaddam told reporters: “I can speak with satisfaction about the success of my negotiations.” He gave no details.
Karami later said that security arrangements involving Lebanon’s Army and Internal Security Forces would be announced following a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
Khaddam came here at the request of Gemayel, who has failed so far to settle a dispute on the structure and role of the divided Lebanese Army. Moslem and Druze ministers are insisting on radical changes in the predominantly Christian Army command, including removal of the commander in chief and other key officers, before discussion of a durable security plan. Christians are refusing to concede on such issues before the consolidation of a cease-fire.
While Khaddam hopes to help put Lebanon’s armed forces back together again through the creation of a broad-based command council that would give Moslems a greater voice, political sources here said he is determined first to stabilize the situation in Beirut, where security has deteriorated and the heaviest shelling in four months broke out last week.
Western diplomats today expressed doubts about prospects for reunifying the Army but they predicted that Khaddam will be forceful in pressuring the Moslems and Druze to agree to his terms and would promise to guarantee them their demands later.
Syria, which has emerged as the main powerbroker here, “has its credibility at stake and it cannot afford to fail,” said one diplomat.
Khaddam’s mission, according to some observers here, will at best delay or postpone a showdown between the Christian and Moslem militias.
The Lebanese Gorces, the Christian militias, are not interested in the recreation of a national Army and prefer a decentralized security system in which each region will have its own army that would incorporate the militias controlling it.
While the more moderate Phalangist Party has started a campaign against partition of Lebanon between Moslems and Christians in its daily newspaper, Al Mala, it is not certain that the Lebanese Forces, the dominant military Christian force, would go along.
Diplomats said there were apprehensions that displeasure with Syrian proposals on the Army would cause defections by hard-line Christian officers to the Christian militia.
Khaddam met with Mohammed Beidoun, of the Shiite Moslem Amal, whose leader, Nabih Berri, is ill. Beidoun then brought Berri a proposal from Khaddam on the Army.
