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| 23/05/2008 The UN Security Council on Thursday welcomed a Lebanese peace deal brokered by Qatar, an agreement that ended the ongoing political crisis between the Lebanese rivals.
The council said it "welcomes and strongly supports the agreement reached in Doha ...which constitutes an essential step towards the resolution of the current crisis, the return to normal functioning of Lebanese democratic institutions, the complete restoration of Lebanon's unity and stability."
In the nonbinding statement, the council also urged the parties to implement all aspects of the agreement.
The statement was supported by the United States and France in a bid to resolve the political crisis in Lebanon and obtain a lull.
Earlier Thursday, the United States and Britain said they believed Hezbollah had been weakened by this month's fighting in Beirut despite the greater influence the resistance group gained in Lebanon's cabinet.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband rejected the view that the show of force by Hezbollah had increased its power.
"Hezbollah lost something very important, which is any argument that it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people," Rice told reporters traveling with her and Miliband on a trip to her California hometown.
"What it is, is a militia that, given an opportunity, decided to turn its guns on its own people. It is never going to live that down," she said.
ARAB-MEDIATED DEAL
Lebanese national opposition won concessions in an Arab-mediated deal reached on Wednesday, including a long-standing demand for veto power in the cabinet. The deal also resolved a dispute over a law for holding 2009 parliamentary elections, forming a new national unity government and the election of a president, expected on Sunday.
Miliband said Hezbollah had shown an "unacceptable" show of force in the streets which created an "illusion" of its power. "What struck us in subsequent days is that the reaction of the people of Lebanon has been very negative about that. The guns of Hezbollah were trained on their own people. The long term consequences of that are potentially going to strengthen the forces of democracy in Lebanon," said Miliband.
Rice said the United States was supportive of the Arab League's role and dismissed any suggestion that the United States was somehow losing its influence in the region. "This is not the first time that the Arab states have taken on Lebanon without the participation of Europe and the United States," she said. | 
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