Lebanon's opposition turned down a Qatari proposal to postpone a debate on a new electoral law until after army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman is elected president. However, they reiterated their commitment to continue talking in the Qatari capital.
The opposition were responding to a personal intervention on Sunday by Qatar's emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who stepped in to save the talks, launched on Friday, from collapsing.
Bringing together all the rival leaders he proposed a framework on which to agree on a unity government before going back to Beirut to elect Suleiman, and to follow that up with a debate in parliament over the disputed electoral law.
Lebanon has been without a president since pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud's term expired last November.
Tensions between the two camps exploded last week into armed clashes, with opposition militia storming the ruling majority's strongholds in west Beirut and the Druze mountains.
After politely rejecting the Qatari proposal, the opposition representatives reiterated their initial position of "agreeing on the representation [of parties] in the formation of a national unity government, and [secondly] to agree on a new electoral law."
They added in a statement that the agreement "would be crowned by electing Gen. Michel Suleiman as president, as agreed."
The ruling majority, which accepted the Qatari proposals, blasted the opposition's refusal as attempting to foil the talks by taking matters back to square one, and accused it of continuing to obstruct the election of a president.
Opposition officials, however, stressed this did not constitute a rejection of the host country's suggestions.
In the face of a total breakdown, the host country and Arab mediators appear adamant to keep the Lebanese politicians in Doha until they agree on something tangible to take back to Beirut to defuse the country's worst crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Arab diplomats told the Middle East Times that the failure of these talks are not an option and that mediation will continue until common ground is found and an agreement reached to hold a parliament session on June 10 and finally elect Suleiman.
Parliament, which elects the Christian president in Lebanon's multi-confessional system, has failed to convene 19 times as the two camps wrangle over the make-up of the next government and a fair electoral law, having already agreed on Suleiman as the "consensus candidate." The 20th voting session was set for June 10.
While the 14 politicians in Qatar formed a joint committee to drum up an agreement on the parliamentary electoral bill, they deadlocked on the constituency boundaries and quotas for the sects.
The disagreement over the division of the districts indicate that negotiations over this law could take months, prompting Qatar's emir to suggest that the Lebanese parliament debates this after the president is elected.
Another reason for the emir's intervention was to defuse mounting tension over the ruling majority's insistence on addressing, if only in a mention, the issue of Hezbollah's weapons and on a guarantee that the Shiite group would not turn these weapons against its rivals at home, but only at Israel, as it has consistently promised.
Hezbollah retorted that the issue of the "resistance, its arms, and capabilities are not up for discussion in Doha," but indicated it would be discussed in Beirut.
So the Qatari proposal suggested the inclusion of a clause in the final statement of the talks that "provides security guarantees against the use of arms" in internal Lebanese disputes. The opposition did not comment on this point in its statement on Monday, indicating that it would agree to such a clause.
Pro-government politicians said that they and the opposition accepted the invitation to talks in Doha after Hezbollah and its allies in the Shiite Amal movement turned their guns against them and their positions. The deaths of 65 people in six days of armed clashes cannot be ignored, they said.
Arab sources in Doha pointed out that despite the rigid statements being made by both sides, there was an overall seriousness to reach an understanding and overcome the impasse.
They said that detailed and intense negotiations are taking place behind closed doors, adding there is a determination by all parties to arrive at a compromise solution that would spare the Lebanese further instability and renewed turmoil.
Analysts say the fact that the rivals have agreed to continue talking – even if quarreling – in Doha to resolve the crisis, and that there exists Arab determination to ensure their success, can provide enough optimism to keep them from fighting in the streets of Lebanon.