Lebanon's parliament elected army chief Michel Suleiman as head of state on Sunday, reviving paralysed state institutions after an 18-month standoff between a U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition.
Celebratory gunfire erupted in Beirut after Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri declared that Suleiman, the sole candidate, had won by securing 118 votes in the 128-member assembly.
The election was part of an agreement brokered by Qatar last week to defuse a crisis that had pushed Lebanon to the brink of civil war, with Hezbollah briefly seizing parts of Beirut and routing government partisans. At least 81 people were killed.
The Doha deal was widely seen as a setback for Washington and its allies, which had pressed for Hezbollah to be disarmed.
However, U.S. President George W. Bush, congratulating Suleiman on his election, said in a statement: "I am hopeful that the Doha Agreement ... will usher in an era of political reconciliation to the benefit of all Lebanese."
Bush said he was confident that Lebanon had chosen a leader who would uphold the country's international obligations under U.N. resolutions that call for Hezbollah to be disarmed.
Foreign ministers attending included those of Iran and Syria, which support Hezbollah, and their regional rival Saudi Arabia, which backs the anti-Syrian majority bloc. The Iranian and Saudi ministers met for half an hour after the election.
"It is clear that the Doha settlement could only occur in an atmosphere of regional truces," Lebanese political commentator Suleiman Taqieddin told Reuters.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later phoned Suleiman to congratulate him on his election, the Lebanese president's office said in a statement.
HEZBOLLAH'S WEAPONS
After the vote, Suleiman, 59, took his oath of office in the chamber before making a speech designed to set the tone for his six-year term. Lebanon has had no president since November.
Suleiman urged a "calm dialogue" on a national defence strategy that would draw on the "capacities of the resistance" - apparently suggesting the eventual integration of Hezbollah's guerrillas into Lebanese security forces.
