Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: France will start delivering to the Lebanese Army weapons paid for by a $3 billion Saudi grant once the deal has been finally signed in Saudi Arabia within three weeks, Prime Minister Tammam Salam said Sunday.
Speaker Nabih Berri, meanwhile, said the planned dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah would kick off with the participation of senior officials from both sides before the New Year.
Salam said that during his official visit to France earlier this month, he had asked French President Francois Hollande to expedite the delivery of French arms to the Lebanese Army through the Saudi-funded deal to help it face Islamist militants threatening the country’s security and stability.
“In addition to strengthening bilateral relations, the arming of the Lebanese Army through the unprecedented $3 billion Saudi gift was one of the most important issues discussed in France,” Salam said in an interview with Al-Jadeed TV station.
“The final lists [of arms] have been finally approved and within two to three weeks, the final signature will take place in Saudi Arabia after which the delivery of arms will begin.”
He added that under the Saudi-French deal, the arms delivery will stretch over 45 months.
“During our visit to France, we hoped that the delivery of weapons which the Army needs to bolster its capabilities to face terrorism would be accelerated. There was a favorable response in this matter,” Salam said.
Following talks with Hollande on Dec. 12, Salam said the French president issued “the necessary orders to expedite the delivery of the arms, especially since the confrontation with terror is still ongoing.”
The Lebanese Army is locked in an open battle against ISIS and Nusra Front militants who are still holding hostage 25 soldiers and policemen captured during bloody clashes in the northeastern town of Arsal in August. The militants are holed up with the hostages in the rugged mountains of Arsal.
In another interview Sunday, Salam said Lebanon hoped France would deliver helicopters to the Lebanese Army faster than planned so it can fight jihadis encroaching from neighboring Syria.
France and Lebanon signed a $3 billion Saudi-funded deal in early November to provide French weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese Army, which has few resources to deal with the instability on its border and has been seeking to modernize its military hardware.
“We are still in talks for the helicopters to be delivered at the beginning of the program rather than at the end, so that we can use missiles as soon as possible against the jihadis in the mountains,” Salam told weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche. “[ISIS] is present in the region of Arsal, on the Lebanese-Syrian border. If it manages to invade Lebanon, it will impose its extremism everywhere.”
Salam said the airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria were insufficient and symbolic.
“To beat them, you need to be on the ground. But at this stage, who wants to go there?” he asked.
Lebanon is also under severe strain from a flood of civilians fleeing the conflict, with over 1 million refugees now equaling a quarter of its population. Syrian refugees even had their food aid suspended earlier this month because a U.N. agency ran out of money, before being reinstated after an emergency fundraising campaign.
“Nobody has really grasped how fragile our situation is,” Salam said. “If the Syrian refugees in Lebanon aren’t fed, we will be confronted to a very worrisome situation, maybe even a revolt.”
In the interview with Al-Jadeed TV, Salam ruled out an imminent solution to the 4-month-old hostage crisis and criticized politicians for using the issue for media coverage.
“There is no magic wand or miracles in this issue,” he said. “There is an open media competition in this issue as well as a competition among political forces, and even among the families [of the hostages] themselves.”
“I have said from the beginning that this is a sensitive and delicate issue. This issue can be dealt with only in secrecy rather than by bazaars, show off and a folklore,” Salam said.
He denied that a new mediator has been named between the government and the kidnappers, saying he heard about it from the media.
Health Minister Wael Abu Faour has appointed Arsal Deputy Mayor Ahmad Fliti to mediate talks between the government and the militants, Fliti and the hostage families said.
Fliti told The Daily Star that he was commissioned by Abu Faour under the directive of Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt to take charge of mediation. Jumblatt was “adamant on resuming negotiations to release the hostages,” Fliti said.
Salam said his Cabinet is split between one side that supports a swap deal with the kidnappers and another that opposes it. He said nine hostages are held by ISIS and the other 16 are held by the Nusra Front.
Asked if the Army had political cover from the government to launch a military operation to release the hostages, Salam said: “When the Army sees that it can achieve results through a military plan, it will not hesitate. We have given the Army a full political cover for everything a long time ago.” He praised the Army’s role in establishing stability in the country.
Meanwhile, Berri said the planned dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah would start between senior officials from both sides before the New Year. He said the agenda of the talks between the two rival factions is open to all topics, except the divisive issues of Hezbollah’s arsenal and the party’s military intervention in the war in Syria.
“I am ready to host the dialogue because I will be sponsoring the first session,” Berri was quoted by visitors as saying. He said officials from the two sides are welcome to meet at his residence in Ain Al-Tineh.
“What matters is direct contacts between the two sides. We will try to see that this dialogue is serious and productive away from bickerings,” Berri said. He added that the most important outcome of the upcoming dialogue is to defuse Sunni-Shiite tensions in the country.
The speaker said he would convene a legislative session early next year once the joint parliamentary committees have finished studying a number of draft laws.
Berri said matters concerning the oil and gas exploration in Lebanon’s territorial waters have been put on the right track, adding that the Cabinet would hold a session to approve the two decrees necessary for the offshore gas licensing
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai warned that Lebanon’s existence was at risk if it continued to be left without a president.
“Lebanon is passing through a very critical phase threatening its existence if it continues to be left without a president and if the violation of the Constitution and the [National] Pact [on power sharing] persists,” Rai said during Sunday’s Mass in Bkirki.
He renewed his call on lawmakers to elect a president “because he is the sole protector of the Constitution, the guarantor of national unity and a source of legitimacy for every activity in constitutional institutions.”