BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanon's billionaire Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri resigned and vowed he would not be heading the next government, bringing to a head a political crisis that has paralysed the country for weeks.
"I have... submitted the resignation of the government, and I have declared that I will not be a candidate to head the (next) government," he said in a statement Wednesday, blaming internal political differences for his decision.
Hariri, 59, a Sunni Muslim who has been prime minister for most of the past 12 years, had first announced that he planned to resign early last month amid a political and diplomatic crisis over Syria's influence in the country's affairs.
A presidential statement confirmed that Hariri submitted his resignation to President Emile Lahoud, his main political rival who is favoured by Lebanon's political masters in Damascus.
"Hariri submitted his resignation which was accepted by President Lahoud... who asked the current government to stay on as caretaker cabinet," it said.
Lahoud, whose term in office was controversially extended by three years under a Syrian-inspired consituttional amendment, will on Thursday start parliamentary consultations which are compulsory to name a new prime minister, officials said.
Hariri's move comes amid a standoff between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus and the United Nations, which on Tuesday repeated a call for Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon, a demand that Damascus swiftly rejected.
Hariri's statement said internal political differences were behind his decision, although it was too early to say whether his resignation means the end of the tycoon's political career.
"Facing the challenges, any challenges, can only be done through a unified domestic front that meets the goals of the Lebanese people... but these objectives have been confronted by known political realities," said Hariri.
Hariri was first named prime minister at the relatively young age of 48 in 1992 when Lebanon was desperately seeking a saviour to help the country emerge from the massive destruction inflicted by the 1975-1990 civil strife.
Since then, the man whose business interests extend from construction to the media has headed five governments.
Hariri's fate had been uncertain for weeks, with no clear indication if he would resign to form a new government or leave office altogether.
Most of the 29 MPs who voted in the 128-member parliament against the September 3 amendment that extended Lahoud's term have previously declared that they would not participate in consultations to choose a new government.
The Lebanese government had been in paralysis amid a standoff between Damascus and the United Nations over Syria's political and military dominance of its tiny neighbour.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council repeated a call for Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon, a demand that the Syrians quickly rejected.
Syria is believed to have around 16,000 troops on the ground in Lebanon, the remains of a much larger force sent in during Lebanon's civil strife, and both Beirut and Damascus insist the troops are there by mutual agreement.