MGLE01: AOUNISTS AGREE TO DIALOGUE, STILL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIRUT 000545 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/WERNER/SINGH/DORAN E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/22/2016 TAGS: KDEM PGOV SY LE SUBJECT: MGLE01: AOUNISTS AGREE TO DIALOGUE, STILL STINGING FROM USG "REBUKE" REF: BEIRUT 413 Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador. Reasons, Section 1.5(b) ¶1. (C) Summary: Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) member and advisor to Michel Aoun Gebran Basile met with Poloff to discuss his party's position on the national dialogue proposal of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Basile said that Michel Aoun would represent his party at the March 2-3 meetings, unless other parties chose to send lower-level representatives. He welcomed the call for dialogue, and insisted that his party would attend without any pre-conceived notions about certain outcomes. The FPM would, according to Basile, seek to include some practical matters of governance, such as economic reform, on the March 2-3 agenda. Basile said that Berri announced three agenda items in his call for talks: the Hariri investigation, UNSCR 1559, and relations with Syria. Basile said that he understood that all three of these topics would touch on the future of the presidency. The FPM would be more than willing to discuss the departure of Emile Lahoud from office, he said. But any discussion of Lahoud's departure has to touch on who comes next, and for Basile and his party that can only lead to one man. Repeating a familiar formula, Basile said that people need to feel safe with someone in the presidency. He said if Hariri can bring a candidate who will accomplish that, he should do so. However, Basile was confident that Hariri knew the importance of Michel Aoun. But Basile was concerned about Hariri's commitment to reform. In his meeting with Aoun, Saad Hariri apparently told Aoun that all serious dialogue between parties should be on hold until Lahoud is removed from power. At this suggestion, Basile commented, why would they engage in a dialogue after they have control of the Parliament, the Prime Minister and the Presidency? End summary. ¶2. (C) Basile told us on February 18 that Aoun was concerned by the growing tensions between Hizballah on one side and Jumblatt and his allies on the other side. Basile expressed the conviction that Jumblatt and Hariri are encouraged by USG support, and the popular view would hold the USG responsible for any violence that resulted from a popular protest to remove the President from office before the end of his mandate. Gebran also denied reports that had appeared in the 2/19 local press that the FPM was considering a plan that would allow Lahoud to leave office to be replaced by Aoun for the remainder of the Lahoud mandate. Of the plan, Basile said he did not know who placed it in the press, and Aoun would be unlikely to support it. ¶3. (C) According to Basile, Aoun had met with both Patriarch Sfeir and Saad Hariri in the previous 48 hours. He said both meetings went well but gave few details. Initially, Basile said the meeting with Sfeir was positive. But when pressed for details, he said, "Look, you know the Patriarch. You can't count on him for strong statements." But Basile did praise Sfeir for an earlier public statement in which the Maronite spiritual leader spoke out against any attempt to dislodge Lahoud through street protests. Basile was convinced that the USG had emboldened Saad Hariri to give Lahoud an ultimatum to leave office by March 14. Basile was worried that a violent confrontation could result from a mass march to the presidential palace. He warned that Saad had no cause to be elated at the February 14 rally in commemoration of his father's death. The crowd, which Basile estimated at over 300,000, was overwhelmingly Sunni and Druze, with no significant Christian participation. Many Sunni participants, Basile claimed, were paid protesters like those who participated in the February 5 cartoon demonstrations. Saad Hariri should not take on the Christian issue of the presidency with a Muslim-dominated street following. ¶4. (C) To show how seriously Aoun took cross-confessional dialogue, Basile brought up the talks between Hizballah and Aoun. Still apparently stinging from USG reproach over the FPM's contacts with Hizballah, Basile energetically defended the FPM memorandum of understanding with the terrorist organization, insisting that they had won major, heretofore-inconceivable concessions from Hassan Nasrallah. When poloff asked if Basile would be presenting the Hizballah-Aoun document at the coming dialogue, he softened his strident tone and said he would not avoid discussion of the agreement in the dialogue, but such a discussion would "not be necessary." ¶5. (C) Comment: Basile returned repeatedly to Aoun's meeting with the Ambassador concerning the Aoun-Hizballah memorandum. Basile insisted that the USG has Aoun all wrong BEIRUT 00000545 002 OF 002 and that he would win Hizballah's confidence and then their weapons. Basile seems convinced that the disapproval of the USG is a significant barrier to Aoun's quest for the presidency. Basile did not wish to discuss Aoun's meetings with the Patriarch, but based on Basile's comments about Sfeir, we assume that Aoun's meeting with the Patriarch ended without any endorsment for Aoun as Lebanon's next President. End comment. FELTMAN