Lebanon nearing dangerous 'red line'

RED LINE: Mussa (pictured) has said Lebanon is nearing a red line in its failure to form a unity government. (Getty Images)

Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned on Sunday that Lebanon was nearing a dangerous "red line" in its failure to form a new unity government under a deal struck in Doha more than five weeks ago.

"We are in effect nearing the red line," he said in an interview published in the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

"We are waiting to see how Lebanese politicians deal with the question of forming the cabinet under extremely dangerous circumstances that have known repercussions," the secretary general said.

"Lebanon is still dotted with mines, and the solution must come from inside the country," he said of the squabbling over the allocation of key portfolios in a national unity government.

Mussa, who has mediated for months to try to resolve Lebanon's protracted political crisis, had already voiced regrets on June 13 over the failure of rival factions to agree on the makeup of a new government.

Forming a cabinet "is an inseparable part of the Doha accord and a pillar of Lebanon's stability", he said, referring to the May 21 deal which brought Beirut's feuding political factions back from the brink of civil war.

Under the accord, army commander General Michel Sleiman was elected president on May 25, filling a post left vacant since November.

Three days later, Sleiman, a consensus candidate accepted by both the Western-backed parliamentary majority and Hezbollah-led opposition, named caretaker prime minister Fuad Siniora to form the new government.

The constitution sets no deadline for forming a government once a premier has been named, nor does it provide a mechanism for withdrawing the mandate of an unsuccessful prime minister-designate.

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