Jumblatt and Hezbollah seal Lebanon reconciliation accord
Hezbollah finalised a reconciliation agreement on Sunday with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt that has diffused tensions between the two Lebanese parties after deadly clashes in May 2008.
Leaders of the two sides emphasised their commitment to national unity in speeches broadcast on Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar, with Jumblatt stressing the importance of ending the tensions.
"If the fighting had spread... the country would have fallen into a vicious cycle of violence that would have put an end to the co-existence" of Lebanon's multiple religious communities, Jumblatt said at the reconciliation meeting in Shweifat, southeast of Beirut.
Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad praised Jumblatt's courage.
He said the partnership was of "strategic interest" and that the two parties would "remain united on different issues, against the (Israeli) enemy that threatens us," reading a speech on behalf of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The agreement crowns reconciliation efforts which were launched after the deadly clashes between Lebanon's political majority and minority blocs, the worst since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
The fighting, which took place in the capital and other parts of Lebanon, pitted the Shiite party and its allies against supporters of current Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party.
Around 100 people were killed in a week.
Since August, Jumblatt has gradually distanced himself from the Western-backed parliamentary majority in Lebanon's national unity government which Hariri formed in November.
The formation came after more than four months of tough negotiations with Hariri's Hezbollah-led rivals.
Trying to think positively, if something does change in Iran this year - will the shiite murderer's gang collapse?
Someone wrote a song about that...
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