BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun will ask Saudi Arabia to reactivate a $3-billion aid package to the Lebanese army in his visit to the kingdom next week, Aoun said in an interview with Asharq television broadcast on Friday.
Aoun, who was serving as commander of Lebanon’s army before he was elected president on January 9, is set to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday in his first trip abroad.
He told Asharq he would ask Riyadh “if it is possible to reactivate the grant” halted in 2016, after Lebanon failed to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
Saudi Arabia once spent billions in Lebanon, depositing funds in the central bank, helping to rebuild the south after the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, and supporting a number of Lebanese politicians, only to see Hezbollah grow more powerful with Iran’s support and its influence spread across the Middle East.
But recent months have seen seismic political shifts in the region, with Israel pummelling Iran-backed Hezbollah last year and Hezbollah’s Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad toppled in December.
“I hope and I await from Saudi Arabia – and especially the Crown Prince – to correct the relationship in the interests of both countries,” Aoun said, saying he hoped for strengthened economic and political ties.
Lebanon faces a huge reconstruction bill following a year of Israeli strikes on the country, but Lebanese officials and diplomats say foreign support – including from the Gulf – is contingent on Beirut enacting long-awaited financial reforms.
Aoun said Lebanon was committed to those reforms but hoped that the reconstruction aid in turn would come “step by step” to allow for rebuilding so that Lebanese displaced from destroyed villages in the south could return home.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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