Lebanon's newly elected president Michel Suleiman prepared to launch consultations on forming a national unity government on Monday as he began his first full day in office. His office said he would begin consultations with the various blocs in parliament on Wednesday on forming the new 30-member cabinet. Military bands and an honor guard salute greeted President Michel Suleiman on Monday as he entered Lebanon's Baabda presidential palace to begin the monumental task of uniting a wounded nation and reconciling its rival political factions, after six months of crisis that left Lebanon without a head of state and drove it to the brink of renewed civil war. Suleiman, who was commander-in-chief of the armed forces, appealed for unity and national dialogue in his inaugural speech on Sunday which was endorsed by Lebanese parties and the international community. “Let us unite... and work towards a solid reconciliation,” Sleiman said. “We have paid dearly for our national unity. Let us preserve it hand-in-hand.” Lebanese newspapers generally welcomed his speech saying it was a roadmap to reconciling the Western-backed parliamentary majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, whose standoff degenerated into sectarian violence earlier this month. “Suleiman sought repeatedly in his speech to prove that balance is the word that will define his mandate,” the pro-government daily An-Nahar said. But some opposition papers appeared less impressed with Suleiman's speech. Meanwhile, after talks in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Monday underlined the “need to improve inter-Arab relations as quickly as possible so that we can face up to some extremely dangerous challenges.”
