Cairo - Arab foreign ministers agreed at their emergency meeting Sunday to send a delegation to Lebanon to broker a "road map" for an end to the current crisis in the country. In a statement issued at the end of their hours-long meeting, the ministers urged Lebanese rival powers from the ruling governing coalition and the Hezbollah-led opposition to cooperate with the delegation.
The Arab League chief, Amr Musa, and Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani will head the delegation.
New proposals to resolve the crisis were discussed at the meeting, including forming committees made up of Arab and international figures acceptable to all Lebanese powers to mediate between the western-backed ruling coalition and the Iranian- and Syrian-backed opposition.
"The door is open for new ideas. But the basis for any solution is the Arab initiative," Musa said at a press conference after the meeting.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, which back the Lebanese government, have pushed for a strongly-worded statement condemning Hezbollah's military actions.
But upon Syrian objection, their proposed draft statement was toned down, omitting any implicit or explicit condemnation of the Shiite Muslim group.
The ministers, however, cut short their meeting to issue an appeal for an immediate end to armed violence in Mount Lebanon and other parts of the country.
The deputy chief of the Arab League, Ahmed bin Hilli, read a statement appealing "for the withdrawal of armed men from areas of tension and making possible the mission of the Lebanese army to maintain security for the sake of stopping bloodshed."
The appeal was made at the request of Lebanon's acting Foreign Minister Tarek Mitri, who is representing his country in the meeting.
