Taif Agreement

Taif Agreement

The Taif Agreement (Arabic: اتفاقية الطائف) (also "National Reconciliation Accord," or "Document of National Accord") was an agreement reached to provide "the basis for the ending of the civil war and the return to political normalcy in Lebanon." Negotiated in Taif, Saudi Arabia, it was designed to end the decades-long Lebanese civil war, politically accommodate the demographic shift to a Muslim majority, reassert Lebanese authority in South Lebanon (then occupied by Israel), though the agreement set a time frame for Syrian withdrawal and stipulated that the Syrians withdraw in two years. It was signed on 22 October 1989 and ratified on 4 November 1989.