Beirut - Lebanon's rival factions agreed Wednesday to end the country's political crisis in a deal that enhances the standing of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and paves the way for filling the vacant presidency.

    After 18 months of deadlock and a recent round of street fighting that left more than 60 dead, the country's U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition came to terms after five days of negotiations in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

    The crisis took on regional importance as a proxy for broader issues - the struggle for influence between the United States and Iran, the growing Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide in the Middle East, and the durability of Hezbollah despite longstanding U.S. efforts to marginalize it.

    According to the terms of the deal, Hezbollah will be given 11 seats in a 30-member cabinet - enough to exercise an effective veto over government policies, as the group had demanded. Army leader Gen. Michel Suleiman will be installed as president, a step the parties had agreed to months ago but which had been delayed by the dispute over cabinet seats and other issues.

    The parties also agreed to redraw parliamentary district lines in advance of elections expected next year - a sensitive matter in a nation where political power is divided by religious affiliation among Shiite and Sunni Muslim and Christian communities.

    Significantly, the issue of Hezbollah's arsenal of weapons - one of the most pressing matters for supporters of the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora - was left to future negotiations. Hezbollah was the chief military opponent of the Israeli forces that occupied southern Lebanon until 2000. The group has been allowed to keep its arsenal intact - and used it in a short but damaging war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Hezbollah's recent show of force on the streets of Beirut, when it swiftly occupied key points around the city, prompted intense mediation by the Arab League to try to stave off further factional fighting.

    Across Beirut, residents breathed a collective sigh of relief at the end of a crisis that, just weeks ago, had shown no sign of abating. In Sidon, cars with Lebanese flags fluttering from the window honked their horns.

    Over a Beirut overpass, onlookers watched as workers began dismantling an 18-month sit-in in the upscale downtown. At the protest itself, workers used a power saw to dismantle steel scaffolding that had served as a stage for the protest. Flatbed trucks and pickups hauled away the detritus of what had become a small community - soiled blankets, pillows, mattresses, couches, stoves and cheap, Syrian-made heaters.

    "We've won. We have got what we wanted," said Ali Badran, a 47-year-old Hezbollah supporter. "We were victorious over the American and Zionist project." Though the protest encampment had dwindled to a symbolic few over the months, it stood as a sign of Hezbollah's support in the country's large Shiite community.

    "If they didn't reach an agreement, we were headed for destruction," said Nour Shamaa, who owns a boutique store in downtown Beirut, where shop after shop was shuttered by the loss of business the protest brought. "We had to make compromises, and we may have lost something, but it's better than losing everything and Lebanon losing everything."

    While a victory for Hezbollah, the accord needed at least the acquiescence of a host of outside parties - including Hezbollah's patrons in Syria and Iran and the current government's supporters in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

    There was no immediate U.S. comment on the deal.

    The Syrian Arab News Agency issued a statement from the country's foreign minister backing the pact. Agence France Presse reported that the French government also had endorsed it.

    Siniora, his government frozen when opposition groups walked out in late 2006, said the agreement showed that Lebanon's quilt of religious sects was able to negotiate their differences instead of resorting to the sort of sectarian war that wracked the country from 1975 to 1990.

    "We must ... pledge never to resort to arms to resolve our political differences," Siniora said after the agreement was signed in Doha. "We should accept each other and hold dialogue to solve the problems. We want to live together and we will continue that. We have no other choice."

    Suleiman, a Maronite Christian, could as soon as this weekend take over the presidency, a position traditionally reserved for a Maronite under Lebanon's brand of sectarian power-sharing.

    Under a new unity cabinet, the 11 opposition members will be joined by 16 members of the majority party, and three appointed by the president.

    "I know the wounds are deep, but we have no one except each other," said Saad Hariri, head of the current governing coalition and a leading contender to take over as prime minister in the new cabinet. Hariri is the son of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination was among a string of political murders in Lebanon in recent years.

    He called the agreement "a new page in Lebanon's history."

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    Ibrahim reported from Doha; Schneider reported from Washington.