Al-Siniora's request for an international tribunal to be held in the assassination will do little to allay the country's political tensions, Lucy Fielder reports from Beirut A letter has been submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora, requesting that the UN unilaterally hold a tribunal to try suspects involved in the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik . The step remains unlikely to ease a political stand-off that has torn Lebanon in half, however. Invoking Chapter VII would bypass Lebanese constitutional procedures and put the United Nations in charge of appointing judges and other procedural details. "We called on the UN Security Council to establish the court as soon as possible, after all means to ratify it in Lebanon have failed," Minister of Information Ghazi Aridi told reporters after a Cabinet meeting late last Monday. Moon dispatched legal envoy Nicholas Michel to Lebanon last month to urge Lebanese leaders to resolve their disagreements and ratify plans for the court. However, in a step of defiance, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, a leading opposition figure, refused to call for the convening of parliament's spring session. The US-backed Lebanese government says that Berri is thwarting the proposed ratification, in compliance with Syria's orders -- many in Lebanon blame Damascus for the killing, a charge that it denies. A spokesperson for the UN in New York told Lebanon's English-language Daily Star that no discussion of the court was scheduled for this month. Perhaps because Al-Siniora sent a similar letter on 10 April, the Hizbullah-led opposition was somewhat muted in its reaction. "I think the opposition expected Al-Siniora to keep sending these letters. Logically, the more he does, the less of a stir it causes," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb of the Carnegie Endowment Middle East Centre. "I think it's seen as an exercise in futility." Amal MP Ali Hassan Khalil told reporters on Monday that the government had made no serious attempt to resolve the issue with the opposition. "I don't think this move will help any of the current Lebanese problems," he said. Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad gave an unequivocal response to the tribunal late last week. "We view the tribunal as an issue that concerns only Lebanon and the United Nations," he told the Syrian parliament on 10 May. "We do not see that we are directly involved with it. "We believe that any cooperation which Syria is required to offer -- not only towards the tribunal, but also towards any formula, structure, or ideas regarding these issues -- is totally rejected by us if it entails the abandonment of national sovereignty." Al-Assad denied that there was any contradiction inherent in cooperating with the investigation but not the trial, saying that the former entailed handing over information, but the latter, sovereignty. If any Syrian citizen, regardless of his post, was to become subject to any law other than Syrian law, "this would be similar to being under a mandate," he said. The UN investigation, headed by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, is expected to need at least another year to bring suspects to trial. Because of the ever-fragile balance between Lebanon's sects and political groups, and the two-year-old political crisis, the Chapter VII option, bypassing Lebanese constitutional procedures, has been seen as a last resort. After tensions pitched into sectarian street battles in January, many have feared a return to civil war. Saad , the son of Rafik and leader of the parliamentary majority, said in an interview with Al-Hayat on 11 May that Al-Siniora had little choice. "The mechanism for forming the tribunal has started. We in Lebanon have tried everything and exerted all forms of pressure to approve it in the Lebanese parliament. 'I, Saad , support the formation of the tribunal under Chapter VII. The mechanism to form this tribunal has begun with France, the United States, the Arab states, and other states. I think that we will achieve this as soon as possible." Saad-Ghorayeb said that the "14 March" anti-Syrian ruling bloc may fear that international developments may not be on its side. The election of Nicolas Sarkozy, although supported by the overwhelming majority of Lebanese with French citizenship, could lead to a slight shift in Lebanon's former colonial master's approach. Sarkozy is considered hawkish on foreign policy and has already held a meeting with , affirming strong support for the trial. But the president-elect does not have the personal links to the billionaire Hariri family that incumbent Jacques Chirac, who was a friend of Rafik's and a driving force behind the tribunal, had. "There is speculation that Sarkozy might not be as personally involved as Chirac was and that France's role in Lebanon could change," Saad-Ghorayeb said. Russia and China have also expressed concern over establishing the tribunal under Chapter VII, and it remains uncertain what their stances would be in the event of a security council vote. But as usual, what may turn out to be the most significant event concerning Lebanon this week, occurred outside its diminutive borders. Tehran and Washington announced that they would hold ambassador-level talks in Baghdad in the next few weeks. This is the highest-level of contact between the two foes, for more than a quarter of a century. Although both said discussions would be limited to Iraq, judging by an Iranian paper delivered at the Sharm El-Sheikh conference on Iraq leaked to the London-based pan-daily Al-Hayat earlier this month, Iran is likely to demand a trade-off for any help extended to Washington as the latter tries to climb out of the Iraq quagmire. Iran says that while it does not oppose the international court, it believes that it's opposition's concerns about its mandate must be taken into account. The Iranian-backed Hizbullah has expressed concerns that the tribunal could be used as a weapon against it. Hizbullah's weapons, the group's ultimate raison d'être, are a red line for the Islamic republic and seen as the main reason that the guerrilla group has demanded a greater share in power. A slight warming of US-Syrian ties at the Sharm El-Sheikh conference in early May could be another reason for the haste of the "14 March" bloc to get the ball rolling. The movement of 14 March "must be afraid, even if there is a tribunal, as to the effect that it would have, in the event of a US rapprochement with Iran and Syria" said Saad-Ghorayeb.
