Shiite ministers rejoin Lebanese government

Five Shiite ministers from Hizbullah party and the Amal movement ended their two-months boycott of the Lebanese government and rejoined.

The two parliamentarians Ali Hassan Khalil (from Amal) and Hussein al-Khalil (from Hizbullah) held a press conference in Beirut in which they announced the return back of the ministers to the government.

The two parliamentarians said that their return will pave the way for the initiative of the speaker of the Lebanese speaker of parliament Nabih Berri to open up dialogue among all Lebanese sides in order to deal with sensitive issues the country is undergoing such as relations with Syria and border demarcation with it, and forming an international court to investigate the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri and others.

The Lebanese cabinet met on Thursday afternoon in the absence of the five Shiite ministers. This stand was preceded by a position taken by the Lebanese prime minister Fouad Sinioura in a general session for the parliament in which he said "we did not and we do not call the resistance (Hizbullah), only by its own name, (rather) the national resistance which is viewed in Lebanon as behind the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation from south Lebanon in May 2000."

Hizbullah had a precondition that the government should say that the resistance is not a "militia" so as to rejoin the government, while the ministerial majority refused to adopt that.