Lebanese ministers inspect Palestinian camps

The UN envoy to Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, had before his arrival in Beirut on Thursday evening visited Paris and Moscow and met in Amman with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and discussed with him the fate of the weapons of the Palestinian organizations in Lebanon.

Worthy mentioning in this regard that sides of the Lebanese inter-dialogue, which held a series of sessions to discuss the political crisis which overwhelms the country, agreed on dismantling the Palestinian weapons outside the camps within 6 months and to deal with the question of weapons inside these camps.

Within the same context, a Lebanese delegation including the ministers of health Muhammad Khaleifa, the labor minister Tarrad Hamadeh, the higher education minister Khaled Qabbani and the minister of social affairs Naela Muaawad inspected several Palestinian camps in Beirut and south Lebanon in order to discuss, an unprecedented step, the living conditions there.

At the beginning of their tour, the Lebanese ministers laid wreathes of flowers on the tombs of the victims of a massacre committed by Lebanese militias in Shatilla camp in 1982.

Qabbani said that the visit comes in response to a decision taken by the Lebanese cabinet earlier and adopted later by the participants at the Lebanese national dialogue conference.

He added that during the visit talks did not tackle the file of the Palestinian weapons, rather talks dealt with the humanitarian, civil and political rights of the residents of the camps.