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LONDON: Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the interim president of the Syrian Arab Republic, discussed strengthening ties with the UK during a meeting with National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell in Damascus on Tuesday.

The two sides discussed regional and international developments during a meeting attended by Asaad Al-Shaibani, the minister of foreign affairs and expatriates, and Director of General Intelligence Hussein Al-Salama.

Al-Sharaa emphasized Syria’s willingness to consider sincere initiatives that promote regional security and stability, as long as they respect Syrian sovereignty and independent national decisions, the official SANA news agency reported.

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Cabinet met at the Presidential Palace on Tuesday to discuss the most sensitive item on its agenda: the disarming of Hezbollah and the need to restrict control of weaponry to the state.

However, ministers faced pressure from Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, and his supporters amid external diplomatic counterpressures.

The session, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and attended by President Joseph Aoun, lasted for about five hours, with the proceedings shrouded in secrecy. It concluded with an announcement by Salam that the Cabinet had decided to continue the discussions, and to implement proposals presented by US envoy Tom Barrack, during their next meeting on Thursday. They will also ask the Lebanese army to develop a plan to restrict control of arms to the state by the end of the year, and present it to the Cabinet by the end of this month.

A political observer told Arab News: “Lebanon has received foreign diplomatic calls to refrain from delaying the approval of the arms-restriction clause and setting a timetable for its implementation. Otherwise, Lebanon will be left to its own fate, in the absence of any guarantees that Israel will, in return, withdraw from the positions it still occupies within Lebanese territory.”

Qassem responded to the Cabinet meeting with a vehement speech in which he said: “The state must take steps to ensure protection, not strip its citizens and resistance of their power. The international community cannot intervene merely to demand that Lebanon achieve Israel’s goals.”

Beginning on Tuesday morning, the army carried out security operations on the old Sidon road that separates Beirut’s southern suburbs from the city and its eastern suburbs. Their activities blocked demonstrators who attempted to leave the area on motorcycles during the Cabinet meeting in a show of support for Qassem.

It came as political and security officials intensified coordination in an attempt to contain street protests and prevent any activity they feared might threaten stability.

Beirut has been gripped by anxiety in the past few days, which has affected normally vibrant evening street activity. On Monday night, dozens of Hezbollah-supporting motorcyclists roamed the streets of the capital, chanting “long live Hassan Nasrallah,” the former secretary-general of Hezbollah who was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut in September last year.

During his speech, Qassem said that “any discussion about Lebanon’s future security must be based on a comprehensive national security strategy, not on timetables aimed at disarming the resistance.”

He rejected the demands that Hezbollah disarm, warning that any attempt to impose such action without broad national agreement would fail.

“The resistance is an integral part of the Lebanese fabric and of the Taif Accord itself,” he said, referring to the 1989 agreement that ended the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.

“Therefore it cannot be treated as a matter subject to a vote, or cancellation by a numerical majority. Rather, it must be discussed through national consensus, out of respect for constitutional and charter principles.”

Ignoring this reality, regardless of international or regional pressures, would “undermine the foundations of stability in Lebanon,” he added

Qassem also said that “the American presence in Lebanon aims to dismantle the power and capabilities of Hezbollah, and Lebanon as a whole,” and the latest, third memorandum on the issue from Barrack, the US envoy, was “worse than the first and second.”

He added: “Among its provisions is the dismantling of 50 percent of Hezbollah’s infrastructure within 30 days, including hand grenades and mortar shells, i.e. weapons considered simple, and these measures should be completed before Israel withdraws from the five remaining points on the border.”

Qassem said that “what Barrack brought is entirely in Israel’s interest” and added: “We cannot adhere to any timetable for dismantling Lebanon’s power that is implemented under the umbrella of Israeli aggression.

“If Israel chooses a large-scale aggression against Lebanon, missiles will fall upon it. All the security that Israel has worked to achieve for eight months will collapse in a single hour.”

He added that if Hezbollah surrendered its weapons, “the aggression will not stop, and this is what Israeli officials are saying. We will not accept being slaves to anyone. To anyone who speaks of concessions under the pretext of halting funding, we ask: what funding is he talking about?

“Prime Minister Nawaf Salam boasts of his commitment to taking measures to liberate all occupied territories, but where are these measures?”

The atmosphere in the 24 hours leading up to the Cabinet meeting was increasingly tense. Pro-Hezbollah activists took to social media to recall the bloody events of May 7, 2008, when the group’s members, wearing black shirts, took to the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon and clashed with supporters of the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party, in an attempt was to overturn a decision by the Lebanese government at the time to confiscate the communications network belonging Hezbollah's Signal Corps, and to dismiss the then commander of Beirut Airport Security, Brig. Gen. Wafiq Shuqair, who was close to Hezbollah.

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, government ministers from the Amal Movement stressed that they supported efforts to restrict control of weapons to the state. Fadi Makki denied that ministers from Amal and Hezbollah would withdraw from the session, and Hanin Al-Sayyed said she would “vote in favor of restricting Hezbollah’s weapons.”

However, Rakan Nasser Al-Din, a Hezbollah member of the government, said only: “Anything will be done according to its requirements.”

A proposal circulated later on Tuesday stated that Lebanese authorities will “refer the implementation of the arms-control agreement to the Supreme Defense Council, headed by the president of the republic. This referral means assigning the Lebanese army the responsibility of planning and preparing for the implementation phases, as the matter relates to technical military matters. Some weapons need to be destroyed, while others need to be dismantled.”

During a speech on Aug 1., celebrated annually as Lebanese Army Day, President Aoun told the country that “this is a fateful phase and all illusions have fallen. Let us together make a historic decision to authorize the army alone to bear arms and protect the borders for all of us.”