FRENCH IN PUSH TO END HARIRI DILEMMA
▶ Macron offers to host Lebanese PM amid uncertainty about his future
Saad Hariri has accepted an invitation to travel to France, further delaying his promised return to Beirut after his surprise resignation two weeks ago.
Mr Hariri, who announced he would step down as prime minister shortly after arriving in Saudi Arabia, is expected in France in the coming days, an official in president Emmanuel Macron’s office told AP.
In his resignation speech, Mr Hariri said he feared assassination and criticised Iran’s influence in Lebanon. He said this week he would return to Lebanon within days.
Members of his own party, as well as Lebanon’s president, said his decision was forced by the Saudi leadership and that Mr Hariri had become a pawn in Saudi efforts to counter Iranian influence in Arab states.
Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir said yesterday that claims Mr Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia against his will were untrue.
French efforts to resolve the crisis have intensified in recent days. Mr Macron extended the offer to come to France to Mr Hariri and his family on Wednesday.
Later in the day, Mr Macron clarified that his invitation was for a visit, and not for political exile. Mr Hariri holds a Saudi passport and lived in self-exile in France and Saudi Arabia from 2011 to 2014.
French foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian said yesterday that France was working to normalise the situation in Lebanon and that Mr Hariri can travel to France whenever he wants.
“Hariri, who I will see later, is invited to France with his family by president Macron,” Mr Le Drian said in Riyadh, where he met Mr Al Jubeir. “He will come to France when he wants and as soon as he wants. He will be welcome as a friend.”
A Lebanese politician said after meeting with president Michel Aoun that Mr Hariri will be travelling to Paris tomorrow and will then go to Beirut, Reuters reported.
Mr Al Jubeir blamed Hizbollah for Lebanon’s problems and called on the group to disarm and become a political party for Lebanon to stabilise.
“Whenever we see a problem, we see Hizbollah act as an arm or agent of Iran and this has to come to an end,” he said.
Hizbollah “has kidnapped the Lebanese [political] system and continues to interfere in the affairs of other Arab countries,” he said.
“These militias are weapons in the hands of Iran and Hizbollah’s leader [Hassan Nasral--
Hizbollah is the only political party in Lebanon that still maintains a militia. It is also Mr Hariri’s chief political rival.
Although many Lebanese factions oppose Hizbollah’s arms, they are also viewed as a necessary deterrent to potential Israeli aggression against Lebanon. But since the beginning of Syria’s civil war, Hizbollah has also become a regional actor.
The party’s militia has been instrumental in helping Syrian president Bashar Al Assad defeat the rebels seeking to overthrow him. Many of those rebel groups received support from Saudi Arabia.
Hizbollah receives financial and military support from Iran and has assisted Iranian efforts to support the government of Iraq in its war against ISIL.
The Saudis also accuse Hizbollah
Hizbollah’s arms are also viewed as a necessary deterrent to Israeli aggression against Lebanon
of interfering in Yemen’s civil war.
Mr Al Jubeir accused the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels of besieging civilian areas and preventing supplies from coming in or out.
“That’s why you have the starvation that’s taking place in Yemen and people need to do a more serious job of holding Houthis accountable for this,” he said.
Mr Hariri’s father, Rafik Hariri, was killed by a bombing in Beirut in 2005.
Rafik Hariri also served two terms as prime minister and his assassination provoked a political crisis that still resonates. His death sparked demonstrations that ended the Syrian army’s three-decade occupation of Lebanon and split the country’s political parties into two main camps, the pro-Syrian March 8 alliance, dominated by Hizbollah, and the March 14 alliance, led by Mr Hariri.
Also yesterday, a spokesman for the Lebanese army said a Saudi man in Lebanon who was kidnapped last week had been released. The spokesman said he was unable to provide any further information.
The day before the kidnapping, the Saudi government had issued a travel warning and asked Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave.