The renewal of the protocol signed
between the Lebanese government and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will
likely take effect soon after Beirut failed to make its observations, al-Liwaa
daily reported Saturday.
The newspaper said that a document
calling on the U.N. Security Council to renew the tribunal’s mandate became
part of the official U.N. documents on Friday at around 5:00 pm New York time
and will likely be approved soon if the Council expresses no reservations on
it.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon had sent a
letter to Lebanese authorities asking for Lebanon’s comments by Feb. 15 on the
plan to extend the mandate of the STL for another three years.
The mandate of the court, which will
try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins, expires on March 1.
But the Lebanese government failed
to meet to discuss Lebanon’s observations due to a cabinet crisis that erupted
on Feb. 1. Premier Najib Miqati suspended the sessions after he accused
ministers loyal to Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun of hindering the
government’s work.
Some reports had said that Miqati
suspended the sessions to avert a clash among cabinet ministers over the
protocol’s renewal although the role of the Hizbullah-led government is only
observatory.
Hizbullah strongly opposes the STL
which has indicted four of its members in Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination.
No comments:
Post a Comment