Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- The leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia on Friday implored Lebanese officials to shun violence in settling political differences and declared their "solidarity with Lebanon against all Israeli threats".
Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah sat down Friday with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and met with Lebanese politicians from various factions in an attempt to avoid Shiite-Sunni conflict ahead of the release of a U.N. tribunal indictment in the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
It has been rumored that Hezbollah operatives will be blamed for the killing, a seminal event in Lebanon. Rafik Hariri died in a powerful explosion that left a 10-foot crater in a street in downtown Beirut and had a similar impact on Lebanon's political culture.
Assad and Abdullah traveled to Beirut from Syria, where they met Thursday.
Suleiman issued a communique saying both men "held talks with Lebanese officials and discussed ways on how to enhance the national reconciliation and the internal stability in Lebanon and how to improve opportunities for economic growth and social development".
The communique said the two asserted their empathy for Lebanon because of "the daily Israeli breaches of Lebanese sovereignty, independence and Israel's attempts to destabilize the Lebanese nation".
They "stressed the importance of continuing to support the Doha agreement," a pact reached by Lebanese rival movements in 2008, and to "complete the implementation of the Taif agreement," an accord developed to end the Lebanese civil war.
CNN
