Lebanon to avoid inter-Arab conflict, president asserts

BEIRUT

Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Friday underlined Beirut’s policy of maintaining neutrality vis-à-vis inter-Arab conflicts.

Lebanon “cannot take sides in any conflict that pits one sister country against another”, he said at a Friday meeting in Beirut with members of the country’s expatriate community.

Maintaining neutrality, however, he added, “doesn’t mean we won’t look out for our land and interests”.

He went on to ask: “What harm is there if [Syrian] refugees go back to Syria or if Lebanese products pass through the Nasib border crossing [linking Jordan to Syria]?"

Six batches of Syrian refugees recently returned to their homes in a move closely coordinated between the Lebanese and Syrian governments.

Lebanon puts the number of Syrian refugees still on its soil at some 1.1 million, while the UN puts the number at less than one million.

With Syria’s Assad regime now in control of the Nasib crossing, Lebanon can resume exporting goods across the border for the first time since the Syria conflict erupted in 2011.

“We will continue to work in the national interest without causing harm to anyone else,” Aoun said.

Despite the president’s call for neutrality, however, Lebanon’s Hezbollah continues to fight alongside Assad regime forces in neighboring Syria.

Reporting by Wassim Seifeddine; Writing by Mahmoud Barakat