Lebanon leader's threat claim considered

The State Department said Tuesday it cannot confirm claims by Lebanon's pro-western parliamentary leader that Syria wants him dead, and U.S. and French diplomats planned a strategy session to help Lebanon's paralyzed democratic government ahead of crucial elections.

Saad Hariri, leader of Lebanon's pro-Western parliamentary majority, claimed Tuesday that Syria is behind a plot to assassinate him and the country's U.S.-backed prime minister before the presidential vote Nov. 12.

"Without commenting on the specifics on those allegations, it's clear that there is a pattern of threat, intimidation and use of violence against those who are trying to further the process of political reform in Lebanon," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The United States has stopped just short of blaming Syria directly for a string of political assassinations in Lebanon that began with the killing of Hariri's father in 2005. The elder Hariri had sought to pull his small country away from three decades of Syrian domination.

Meanwhile, the State Department's top diplomat for the Middle East was meeting in Paris with French diplomats who are also worried about the upcoming election and the fate of the fragile Lebanon government.

The chaotic Lebanese election process is expected to be a main topic for upcoming sessions between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her French counterpart, and between President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy next month. The United States and France have jointly sponsored United Nations Security Council resolutions supporting Lebanese sovereignty.

In meetings set for Wednesday in Paris, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch will "emphasize our strong view that the next president must be chosen in accordance with the constitution and repeat our strong view that this process needs to happen free of foreign interference," a State Department official said Tuesday.

Welch will also travel to Jerusalem for a separate meeting of the international group of Mideast peacemakers known as the Quartet. Rice is due in Jerusalem and the West Bank next week.

The attempt to elect a president is the latest potentially dangerous turn in Lebanon's 10-month power struggle between the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and the opposition led by Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Iran.

The voting was postponed to give rival factions more time to find a compromise. The 128-member parliament, dominated by anti-Syrian legislators, failed to meet two times to choose a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who steps down Nov. 24.

There had been hopes that the presidential vote could break a political deadlock that has sometimes turned violent, but many Lebanese now fear that that divisions over the presidency could make a fragile situation worse by setting up rival governments.

Under Lebanon's complex sectarian-based political system in place since independence won in 1943, the president traditionally hails from the Maronite community which makes up the largest sect among minority Christians.