Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said in a statement from Baabda Palace following his meeting with President Joseph Aoun: We trust the ability of President Aoun and his Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam to achieve stability”. The Saudi Foreign Minister added: We look with optimism at Lebanon’s future and implementing reforms will enhance the world’s confidence in it. I discussed with the Lebanese President the importance of adhering to the ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister’s visit to Lebanon is the first trip to Beirut by Riyadh’s top diplomat in 15 years, seeking a commitment to reform as the Gulf state reasserts sway in a country where Iranian influence is waning.
The visit by Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud reflects seismic political shifts in Lebanon since Israel pummelled the Iran-backed Hezbollah in last year’s war, and since Hezbollah’s Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled by rebels in December.
Prince Faisal first met with Lebanon’s new President and is expected to later meet with Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam.
Both took office this month, marking a new phase for a country that has been mired in financial crisis since 2019 and is now facing a reconstruction bill of billions of dollars.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Prince Faisal said that Saudi Arabia regarded the election of a Lebanese president after a vacuum of more than two years as extremely positive. He expressed hope that a new Lebanese government would be formed “in the not-too-distant future”.
“We will need to see real action, we will need to see real reform, we will need to see a commitment to a Lebanon that is looking to the future, not to the past, in order for us to raise our engagement,” he said in Switzerland on Tuesday.
“I plan to be visiting Lebanon this week, and depending on what I hear there and what we see, will decide the kingdom’s approach,” he added.
So far PM Salam has not been able to form a government primarily because The Shiite duo of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and Amal are insisting on keeping the ministry of finance a move that contradicts the road map that Aoun talked about in his inaugural speech after he was sworn in in early January. He was very specific about rotating the ministries to prevent corruption.
“Without a strategy to disarm Hezbollah and relax its control over key government functions, political reform in Lebanon will remain an abstraction. Hezbollah has a unique responsibility in what comes next, because it stands in the way of real transformation. What Lebanon needs, first, is to be exposed for what it is: a hostage of Hezbollah”, according to Ali Hussein, a prominent Lebanese analyst.
“The Ministry of Finance has been under Amal and Hezbollah’s control for the past 10 years. This is the period when Lebanon defaulted on its Euro bonds, this is the period when the Lebanese currency collapsed and become worthless, this is the period when the Lebanese depositors lost the ability to access their bank accounts, this is the period when an explosion rocked the capital Beirut after the blast of the Beirut port which was caused by the explosion of thousands of tons of explosive chemicals that were stored there illegally by Hezbollah for use by the Syrian regime in is barrel bombs against civilians “, he added .
“Does such a group deserve such a ministry”, he asked.
“This is precisely why Aoun wants to rotate the ministries ” , he said