Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was set to fly from Saudi Arabia to France yesterday, a move aimed at defusing political turmoil sparked by his shock resignation in Riyadh.
The Lebanese premier and his family are due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris today after allegations from Hariri’s political rivals back home that he was essentially being held hostage by the Saudi authorities.
The announcement of the visit came after Hariri, 47, met French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Riyadh Thursday, with Lebanon’s former colonial power Paris hoping to ease a crisis that has driven up tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Hariri, a dual Saudi citizen, has been in Riyadh since issuing a statement on television there on November 4 that he was stepping down because he feared for his life. The announcement — which reportedly took even some of Hariri’s closest aides by surprise — and his subsequent failure to return home to quit officially in person, fuelled claims that he was acting under orders from his Saudi patrons.
Both Hariri and Riyadh have denied allegations he was being held against his will, with the Lebanese leader yesterday dismissing as “rumours” all speculation about his situation.
“My stay in the kingdom is aimed at conducting consultations on the future of Lebanon and its relations with its Arab neighbours,” he wrote on Twitter. Macron said he will host Hariri with the honours due to a prime minister when they meet at noon today, with his family set to join them later for lunch.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally who had accused Saudi Arabia of “detaining” Hariri and refused to accept his resignation from abroad, welcomed the news about the trip to Paris.
“We hope that the crisis is over and Hariri’s acceptance of the invitation to go to France is the start of a solution,” he said Thursday on the official presidential Twitter account.
“If Mr Hariri speaks from France, I would consider that he speaks freely, but his resignation must be presented in Lebanon, and he will have to remain there until the formation of the new government,” Aoun said later in a statement issued by his office.
There is no indication what Hariri plans to do after visiting Macron, but the French leader has insisted he would then be free to return to Lebanon to either hand in or rethink his decision to quit.
France’s intervention was the latest in a string of European efforts to defuse the tensions over Lebanon.
Hariri — whose father ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a 2005 car bombing blamed on Hezbollah — became head of a shaky compromise government including the group last year. Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, from a rival bloc to Hariri’s, yesterday during a visit to Moscow blasted unnamed groups for seeking to “dislodge the Lebanese head of state”. But Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir insisted from Madrid that “unless Hezbollah disarms and becomes a political party, Lebanon will be held hostage by Hezbollah”.
Iran angrily lashed out at France’s “biased” Middle East policies after Le Drian accused it of “hegemonic” ambitions in the region during his visit to Riyadh.
But Macron yesterday insisted that Paris wanted dialogue with Tehran.
A poster depicting Saad Hariri, who announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister from Saudi Arabia, is seen in Beirut, yesterday.
