The deal between Lebanon's political leaders is aimed at ending a protracted political crisis [AFP]

Announcing the agreement on Wednesday, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari prime minister, said that the deal will be "carried out immediately".
 
The deal covers the election of army chief Michel Suleiman as president, the formation of a national unity government and a ban on the use of weapons in any internal conflict.
 
Under the terms of the accord, parliament will convene within 24 hours to vote for a new president.

However, some Lebanese politicians at the talks said that the vote for a new head of state would go ahead on Sunday, filling a post vacant since November.
 
The Doha mediation talks came after marathon negotiations in an Arab-mediated bid to end a political crisis that erupted into deadly street battles earlier this month.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Qatari emir, was at the Sheraton hotel in the early hours on Wednesday, working with the rival Lebanese groups on the final wording of the declaration.

Cabinet veto
 
According to Marwan Hamadeh, the Lebanese telecommunications minister, the opposition will get 11 seats in the cabinet, while 16 seats will go to the parliamentary majority bloc.
 
The remaining three seat will distributed by the elected president.
 
The composition of the new cabinet means that the Hezbollah-led opposition holds veto rights over decisions reached by the cabinet. Previously, the opposition held six seats in the executive.

Hamadeh said the new election law was satisfactory to both sides.

The opposition also won another of its demands - a revision to Lebanon's electoral law, which divides the country into smaller-sized districts.
 
The opposition had said that changes to the electoral law would allow for better representation of the country's various factions.

Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, said: "We should renounce resorting to violence as a means to settling our political disputes."

"Our diversity is what Lebanon is known for. We should not use this diversity as a tool for division."

Siniora also said that the Arab league now has the task of "mending Syrian-Lebanese relations".

Saad al-Hariri, the parliament majority leader, said he and his supporters "made this agreement, although we are deeply wounded".

"This opens a new page for Lebanon," he said.

The Qatar-hosted talks followed an Arab-mediated deal that brought an end to a week of fighting, prompted by government moves to ban Hezbollah's private communications network and sack the security chief at Beirut airport, who was alleged to have ties to Hezbollah.

Sit-in 'over'

Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliament speaker and a key opposition leader,  announced an immediate lifting of an 18-month-old sit-in by the opposition in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

The tent city was part of protests calling for the resignation of Fouad Siniora [AFP]

The protest began on December 1, 2006 when the opposition set up a sprawling tent city on streets leading to the offices of Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, in a bid to force him to step down.
 
Within an hour, trucks started clearing the tent city, which paralysed the commercial heart of Beirut for more than a year.

Large parts of the city centre were transformed into a ghost town as a result of the tent city forcing dozens of restaurants and businesses to shut down.

Berri said: "In the name of the opposition, I call for the end to the sit-in, in downtown Beirut."

"This is the start of a good era, and it has started here in Qatar."

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