Beirut: Lebanon's deeply divided rival factions on Tuesday began national reconciliation talks on the controversial issue of Hezbollah's weapons amid scepticism the dialogue can help bridge differences.
Leaders of 14 political factions met at the presidential palace for the talks headed by President Michel Sulaiman.
The dialogue is part of a peace deal reached in Qatar in May that ended sectarian clashes and defused a long-running political crisis.
The agenda is to focus on a national defence strategy that could eventually integrate Hezbollah weapons into the army.
On the eve of the talks, however, it was clear the Hezbollah-led minority coalition and the Western-backed parliamentary majority remain at odds over the fate of Hezbollah's arsenal.
The Iran and Syria-backed Hezbollah has resisted the calls to disarm and baulked at a requirement to disarm included in the UN resolution that ended a month-long war between Israel and the group in 2006.
Hezbollah says its weapons are necessary to protect and defend Lebanon against Israeli attacks.
Closed session
"I am completely confident that we can adopt a strategy that protects Lebanon based on our armed forces and benefiting from the resources and capabilities of the resistance," Sulaiman said in his opening speech, referring to Hezbollah. He did not elaborate.
Following his speech, the participants, including Arab League Chief Amr Mousa who was invited to attend as an observer, went into closed session.
The national dialogue is expected to be a long and drawn out process. The first session will likely focus on formalities and forging an outline for future sessions, before wading into the thorny issue of Hezbollah's weapons.
Mohammad Ra'ad, a senior Hezbollah lawmaker who will represent the group at the talks, implicitly renewed Hezbollah's rejection of local and international demands to disarm.
"Defending ourselves is a right that does not require a decision. This issue can be debated in theory but the answer is clear and has already been decided," he said on Sunday.
Lawmaker Sa'ad Hariri, who heads the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, said such thinking reduces the upcoming dialogue to "a mere photo opportunity". Dialogue talks were first held in Lebanon in June 2006 but failed to make headway.
Hezbollah's decision a month later to kidnap two Israeli soldiers, triggering the ruinous 34-day war with Israel, further aggravated the debate over Hezbollah's arsenal.
Since that war, Lebanon has been rocked by successive internal crises and sectarian fighting that has brought the country to the brink of civil war. Further dialogue sessions in Beirut in November 2006 and in France in July 2007 failed to produce any results.
The Doha accord put an end to street fighting and resulted in the election of former army commander Sulaiman as compromise president and the formation of a national unity government that gave Hezbollah and its allies veto power over all major cabinet decisions.
In outlining its future policy, the government has recognised Hezbollah's right to retain its weapons for liberating Lebanese territory occupied by Israel, but deeply entrenched rival agendas still seem to preclude any breakthrough.
