In Ménargues's account the Saudi and Kuwaiti foreign ministers proposed Syria–Lebanese Forces talks after seeing Khaddam in Beirut on 3 September. Next day at Baabda, Bashir Gemayel accepted the opening of crossing points. The Vigilance Committee's evening statement reserved arms imports to legal forces and set up a body to police the coast and ports; Bashir and the Lebanese Front rejected it.

Bashir Gemayel, back from Saudi Arabia on 2 July, said the PLO did not mean to leave. Two hours earlier, at the Alexandre Hotel, Sharon had told reporters, Robert Fisk among them, that Israel's only aim was to destroy the PLO and it wanted not 'one square inch' of Lebanon.

Geneva's leaders agreed on Lebanon's 'Arab identity'. Fisk saw two reconciliations: Camille Chamoun ended five years of silence with Suleiman Frangieh, and Frangieh's public embrace of Amin Gemayel seemed to close their families' feud.

The labour confederation's 1986 strikes began a run of ever more political protests against the war (Hanf, de Clerck and Malsagne, Traboulsi).

The meetings produced no agreement (Hanf).

Fisk's account puts the kidnapping on 28 May 1985.

Hanf: on 4 December 1990 soldiers started clearing the Green Line barricades, the Lebanese Forces having left Beirut on 3 December except for 300 men at their Karantina headquarters and in the port.