Lebanon says its Syrian residents are ‘migrants’ not ‘refugees’
Foreign minister to push plan for repatriation at UN General Assembly
Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil does not use the word “refugees” to describe the more than one million Syrians he wants to return home, preferring the terms “migrants” and “displaced”.
“Lebanon does not accept Syrians [as] refugees, not one of them,” Mr Bassil told The National at the UN General Assembly in New York, where he is to push a repatriation plan.
His argument is that Lebanon is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention in Geneva and is not required to grant refugee status.
“It’s stipulated in our constitution,” Mr Bassil said. “It’s related to the existence of the country that’s based on a certain equilibrium and balance. You cannot, all of a sudden, introduce 50 per cent of its population to the country.”
Lebanon hosts up to a million refugees – almost a quarter of its population – the UN refugee agency says, although the Lebanese government puts that number at 1.5 million.
Mr Bassil calls the issue “an existential threat” to a country that has a political system rooted in balancing sectarian representations and interests.
“We hope to use our presence here to drive countries towards our policy, towards the necessity of return,” he said.
Since last year, Lebanon has repatriated a few thousand Syrians, but international organisations such as the UN agency are sounding the alarm over forced returns to unsafe areas.
“[The] UNHCR so far does not facilitate returns because we believe that conditions are not yet ready,” Nida Yassin of the UN High Commission for Refugees in Jordan, told Voice of America last month.
But Mr Bassil said: “They should feel [comfortable] to go back and we have to stop encouraging them from staying in Lebanon.”
His fear is that the refugee population is being used as a bargaining chip in negotiations over Syria’s future.
“The return of refugees has to happen gradually,” Mr Bassil said. “We are talking about different categories of refugees. Some are economic migrants, others are security migrants.”
He said the regime of President Bashar Al Assad was approving lists of people supplied by Lebanese intelligence but the process was slow.
Last month, the Lebanese military escorted 250 people out of Arsal, a northern town on the Syrian border, from 3,000 who registered to return.
Mr Bassil blamed regional influence for the stalemate in the formation of a new Lebanese government.
“In the back of the mind of some players they are betting on regional politics, but we think it will pass,” he said.
He acknowledged Hezbollah’s open breach of the policy of dissociation from reginoal affairs but accused others of doing it “more tacitly”.
On the US sanctions on Iran and whether Lebanon would introduce restrictions, Mr Bassil did not give a direct answer but said Beirut abided by UN resolutions and preserved its “interests and friendships” while maintaining its stability.
We hope to use our presence here to drive countries towards our policy, towards the necessity of return