Ya Libnan

Bassil meets Hezbollah chief. They stress ‘stability, unity, coordination’

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nasrallah bassilFree Patriotic Movement leader and Lebanon Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil s met with Hezbollah chief  Hassan Nasrallah to discuss the fallout from Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s shock resignation, Lebanese  media reported

The meeting, which was held   at undisclosed location   on Monday, lasted “five hours,” the reports said .

According to OTV station  , the two leaders discussed the current developments and voiced “utter keenness on stability, unity and coordination among all forces.”

Hariri stunned the Lebanese with his resignation on Saturday in a televised speech from the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, where he claims to have fled for his own safety, citing a foiled assassination attempt by Iran on his way out of Lebanon.

 He accused Iran of meddling in Lebanese politics and taking the country “as hostage”. He said the atmosphere in Lebanon now was similar to that in 2005, when his father, former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, was assassinated in a car bombing.

Nasrallah on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of meddling in Lebanese affairs by orchestrating the resignation.

“The resignation was a Saudi decision dictated to prime minister Saad al-Hariri and forced on him,” Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have long sparred in the Lebanese political arena. Hezbollah  is allied to and backed by Tehran, and is widely seen as  projecting Iranian influence.

Hariri, scion of a Sunni Lebanese polity dynasty, was seen to have extended an olive branch to Hezbollah when he formed a national unity government less than a year ago.

The president of that government, Michel Aoun, who is a political ally of Hezbollah, said he would not accept  Hariri’s resignation until the prime minister returns to Lebanon.

It is worth noting that Bassil  who is also closely allied with Hezbollah replaced  his father in-law president  Aoun  as the FFM leader

While many analysts saw Mr Hariri’s resignation as evidence that Hezbollah was being pushed back, some fear it will lead to further instability in an already fragile country.

Threats by Iranian  official 

A reformist website known to leak what is going on behind the scenes of the Iranian regime, quoted informed sources in Tehran that Ali Akbar Velayati  the adviser to the Supreme Leader of Iran, met with resigned Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, in Beirut last Friday.

During the meeting he threatened Hariri to  reject  the strategy of the US administration against Hezbollah, or Lebanon will face chaos and Saad Hariri will meet the fate of his father who was assassinated on February 14th 2005.

According to Amadnews, and in a report entitled, “What happened during the meeting between Velayati and Hariri,” the website reported that one day after the meeting, the Prime Minister of Lebanon announced his resignation from his office.

The report added that conservative media outlets portrayed Saad Hariri’s statements as being the result of pressure exerted by Riyadh on him, while “the truth is still out there” and that “Ali Akbar Velayati threatened Saad Hariri at the end of the meeting after the latter refused to bow to Iranian guardianship and stand against Trump’s strategy”.

 

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