BEIRUT: Lebanon s ambassador to Egypt will attend the Arab summit in Libya after President Michel Sleiman decided not to go amid a spat over the suspected disappearance there of a prominent Lebanese cleric, the government said on Wednesday.
The cabinet unanimously agreed that Khaled Ziyadeh, Lebanon s ambassador to Cairo and representative to the Arab League, will represent Lebanon at the Arab summit on Saturday and Sunday, Information Minister Tarek Mitri told reporters.
Top officials in Lebanon have said they would boycott the meeting over a dispute with Tripoli on the disappearance of leading Shia cleric Mussa Sadr.
Sadr – who is still regarded by Lebanon s Shias as a key spiritual guide – vanished on August 31, 1978, and the circumstances of his disappearance are still a mystery. He was last seen in Libya.
An official told AFP earlier this month that Sleiman would not attend the summit in response to a request by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Shia who heads the Amal movement founded by Sadr.
In 2008 Lebanon issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over Sadr s disappearance while he was in Tripoli with two companions, who also went missing.
Libya has denied involvement in Sadr s disappearance. It says the man left the country for Italy, but the Italian government has always denied he arrived there.
However, in 2004 Italian authorities returned a passport found in Italy belonging to the imam. -AFP
