Lebanon's pro-Syrian president vows to stay on

BEIRUT, Mar 18 (Reuters) Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said today he would not cave in to mounting pressure to resign and that the country's pro-Syrian Hizbollah guerrillas should keep their arms.

''I will not meet their demand and leave office. They can only oust me if the constitution states I am accused of treason or if I have violated the constitution, two things I have never committed,'' he said in advance excerpts of an interview to be aired on Al Jazeera television later today.

Lahoud, a close ally of Damascus, has resisted calls from anti-Syrian politicians to step down, vowing to serve until the end of a term they say was extended by three years under pressure from Damascus in 2004.

Many Lebanese see Lahoud as the last vestige of Syrian tutelage over their country, which ended last year when Damascus withdrew its troops in the aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

But fractious Lebanese politicians have been unable to agree on a replacement and removing the president would require at least a two-thirds majority in Lebanon's 128-member parliament.

Lahoud said most of the politicians who were now demanding his resignation had spent their careers in the Syrian camp, and challenged them to hold new elections if they were confident of keeping a parliamentary majority they won last summer.

''If they do not fear anything let them call for early elections and let the new deputies elect their new president. Or if they want, let them hold a referendum and see who the people would choose as their new president,'' he said.

Lebanese leaders are holding a ''national dialogue'' to try to end a political crisis paralysing the country but have been unable to agree on the fate of Lahoud and what to do about a UN Security Council resolution demanding Hizbollah disarms.

Some Lebanese say it is time Hizbollah, whose guerrilla attacks were crucial in ending the 22-year Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, laid down its arms and stuck to politics.

Hizbollah has vowed to keep its arms as a deterrent against Israel and until the Shebaa Farms, a strip on the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria's Golan Heights, is liberated.

The United Nations considers Shebaa Farms Syrian soil seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war but Lebanon considers it still-occupied Lebanese land.

''The weapons of the resistance should exist until the Arab-Israeli conflict comes to an end and the Palestinians return to their homeland,'' Lahoud said.

REUTERS CH RAI0016