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A Lebanese Army soldier mans a gun on an armored personnel carrier in downtown Beirut, ahead of the visit of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair to the city, Monday. (AP)
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| By Associated Press September 11, 2006 |
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Beirut Monday to meet with his Lebanese counterpart, hoping to ease the anger caused by a month of bloody fighting, but he may find himself the target of some of that bitterness.
The parliament speaker, a close ally of Hezbollah who was supposed to meet with Blair, left town in an apparent snub to the first British leader to visit Lebanon.
The country's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric accused Blair of supporting the monthlong Israeli military blitz against Hezbollah guerrillas because Britain supported the United States in refusing to demand a quick cease-fire to end the war.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said Sunday that Blair was "a real partner in the Israeli-American war on Lebanon," and should be declared "persona non grata" rather than welcomed to Beirut.
Anti-American groups planned protests against the visit -- and Blair's close alliance with U.S. President George W. Bush.
One daily, Al Balad, said Sunday that riots might erupt, and another, As-Safir, described him as "the ugly Briton" and called his invitation to Beirut "a political mistake that could have been avoided."
Hundreds of Lebanese troops and police, backed by armored carriers, sealed off the downtown Beirut area, setting up roadblocks to keep demonstrators and cars away, allowing only pedestrians into the city's main squares.
The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of internal security, brought in hundreds of reinforcements to cover an area from the airport in south Beirut to the downtown area, a 10-minute drive away.
A protest was planned in front of the government's seat, but the police authorized it about half a mile away, beyond the sight of Blair's meeting with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Blair helped nudge stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts forward during talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah over the weekend. On his brief stop in Beirut, he was to see the Western-backed Saniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri before heading home.
But in an apparent snub to Blair, Berri, the close Hezbollah ally and a Shiite, left the country two days earlier on a private visit.
Blair was not expected to meet with President Emile Lahoud, a pro-Syrian who has been boycotted by Western nations in the last year.
A Blair spokesman said the prime minister's office was not upset about the cancellation of the Berri-Blair meeting, saying they did not perceive it as a snub and did not believe Berri had left the country to avoid meeting the British prime minister.
"We're not going to Lebanon to see Speaker Berri. We're going to Lebanon to see Prime Minister Saniora. He's the key guy," said the spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy.
Blair is the first British prime minister to visit Lebanon, and the second Western leader to come to Beirut since fighting erupted in July. France's premier traveled to Beirut during the fighting.
Questions about Blair's domestic political troubles have followed him to the region. He gave into a fierce rebellion in his governing Labour Party and announced reluctantly on Thursday that he would resign within a year.
Anger at his handling of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants helped drive the revolt. Many Labour loyalists were furious that Blair refused to break with Bush to call for an immediate cease-fire, a stance they saw as tacitly endorsing Israel's continued offensive, which killed more than 850 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians.
Blair says it took time to craft a peace that would hold and argued that was preferable to a quick cease-fire that could have collapsed.
In Israel and the West Bank, Blair got a warmer reception although a handful of protesters demonstrated outside his meeting in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas both said after meeting Blair Saturday and Sunday that they would hold talks, a small step toward reviving peace efforts that have been paralyzed for months.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said Blair's efforts were helpful in bringing them together. Both sides declined to say when the meeting might take place or what would be on the agenda, but they made it clear that they expect to go beyond formalities.
Blair also tried to draw Hamas into peace efforts, but the militant group, which controls the Palestinian government, rejected his condition that it first renounce violence and recognize Israel.
Despite Hamas' tough stance, the readiness by Olmert and Abbas to meet were the first sign of movement in peacemaking for months.
Abbas said he was prepared to sit down with Olmert with no preconditions and Israel said it would work to bring about the meeting soon.
Olmert, who was elected last spring, and Abbas were on the verge of holding their first working meeting in June when Palestinian militants tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip and captured an Israeli soldier. The kidnapping derailed the meeting and sparked a broad Israeli offensive into Gaza.
After Israel's 34-day war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon ended last month, hopes for dialogue seemed even more elusive.
But in talks with Blair on Saturday, Olmert dropped his insistence that there could be no talks without the release of the captive soldier and declared he too was ready to meet the Palestinian leader without any conditions.
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