Lebanon Militias Fail to Agree on Highway Turnover

BEIRUT —  Rival Christian and Druze militias failed Friday to resolve snags holding up the reopening of the coastal highway linking Beirut with Israel’s occupation zone in southern Lebanon, local radio stations said.

Government and militia leaders now hope to agree to a security plan for the highway on Monday, the state radio reported.

About 200 internal security policemen were originally scheduled to begin defusing mines and removing militia barricades on the highway Thursday.

They were to prepare the road for Lebanese army troops, which are scheduled to move into the southern third of Lebanon as Israel begins withdrawing its occupation forces.

A committee made up of Lebanese army and police officers and of representatives of the militias ended a five-hour meeting Friday afternoon with an announcement that no compromise had been reached to resolve the problems.

The militias have questioned the role and areas of operation of the 200 security policemen.

Lebanese police, meanwhile, said Friday that they have no clue to the whereabouts of Eric Wehrli, the Swiss charge d’affaires who was kidnaped 24 hours earlier in Muslim West Beirut.

No person or group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.