Syria’s foreign minister Tuesday told Lebanese President Amin Gemayel to scrap a security pact with Israel if he wanted peace in his land, officials said.
The Syrian conditions were spelled out amid reports of progress in talks among the leaders of Lebanon’s Christian and Moslem factions meeting to discuss peace for the first time since the 1975 civil war.
The groups met for nearly five hours in two sessions and formed a committee to draft a resolution for adoption Wednesday on what kind of nation Lebanon should strive to be.
‘Is it an American base? A Soviet base? An Arab state? An independent state?’ asked Druze Moslem leader Walid Jumblatt.
A spokesman for the Christian-led government said the evening discussions ‘went better than expected’ because ‘people started talking to each other, started warming up.’
Nabih Berri, the leader of the Shiite Amal militia, said the talks were going ‘better’ but declined to elaborate.
Earlier, Gemayel met with Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam for two hours in a penthouse suite in the Hotel Intercontinental. A high Lebanese official said ‘it did not go well at all.’
That discussion overshadowed the peace talks largely because no agreement among the warring sects is expected without tacit Syrian approval, since Damascus supplies money, arms and ammunition to the Moslem opposition armies.
‘The future of Lebanon depends to a great extent on whether any understanding can be reached between the Gemayal government and Syria,’ one diplomat said.
Lebanese officials said the meeting was the first high-level contact between the two governments since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last year.
A Lebanese official said Khaddam declared that reconciliation among the warring political and religious factions in Lebanon was possible only if Gemayel scrapped the May 17 troop withdrawal agreement with Israel.
The accord provided for Israeli security concerns on its northern border, ended the state of war and provided for future diplomatic and trade relations.
Khaddam, also said Syria wanted to retain ‘influence’ in Lebanon’s eastern Bekka Valley, where it has 30,000 troops.
Damascus has always regarded the area as part of ‘Greater Syria’ and vital to the defense of Damascus, which is in striking distance of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
Gemayel reportedly raised the possibility of his traveling to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Hafez Assad.
In the talks among the rival leaders, the pro-Syrian National Salvation Front demanded abrogation of the Israeli treaty and an end to the 40-year-old system of government that requires the president to be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Moslem and the speaker of Parliament a Shiite.
It called for direct election of the president and creation of a two-chamber Parliament, rather than apportionment of all legislative and army posts based on a 6-5 ratio favoring Christians.
That distribution was based on 1932 census but Moslems are now said to comprise 60 percent of Lebanon’s population.
The Front is led by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, former president Suleiman Franjieh and Rashid Karami.
