Siniora: Government resignation is prelude to dialogue

Government resignation is only a necessary prelude towards relaunching national dialogue around the round table of negotiations, head of the pro-Hariri "Future" parliamentarian Bloc, Fouad Siniora told a group of businessmen and supporters coming to see him at his Sida office today. Siniora indicated that windows opened by Mikati's resignation must be exploited to the full to relaunch the round table and that the new electoral law must be based on the so-called Code # 60. He stressed the validity of this law and listed outgoing government's failures in practically all fields and respects. Siniora urged Hizbullah to lay aside its belligerency and bellicosity since it happens to the only party in possession of guns in the country. Once more, he came out in favour of dissociating from the Syrian tempest as he called it in a bid to preserve or save the country. He proposed that 1701 be first implemented in Beirut with the city eventually becoming the first ever to be demilitarized. The Future Bloc leader accused Hizbullah of tampering with the livelihood of expatriate Lebanese by embarking on a series of misadventures undertaken in a number of countries abroad. He defended Reefi's staying on top of the internal security apparatus and credited him with dismantling many Israeli spy networks. Let's sit down and talk a meaningful consensual electoral law deemed acceptable to all rather than plotting to take over the country, Siniora concluded.