Guterres greets Aoun at Baabda Palace. (Credit: Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres met with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace hours after arriving in the country on Sunday. Following the meeting, the president’s office announced that it had been a “successful meeting” in which Guterres said that the UN stands in solidarity with the Lebanese people and emphasized the importance of legislative elections due to take place next year.
Here’s what we know:
• Aoun said that he had “assured the secretary-general of the UN that Lebanon is working on overcoming the crisis, albeit gradually, by developing an economic recovery plan for submission to the International Monetary Fund and negotiating it in conjunction with various reforms in the economic, financial and administrative fields.”
• Lebanon is grappling with a more than 2-year-old economic crisis which has seen its currency lose more than 95 percent and pushed nearly four-fifths of its population into poverty. IMF bailout negotiations commenced under Hassan Diab’s government have yet to progress beyond the preliminary stages.
• Guterres said that he holds one “simple message,” which is that the UN stands in solidarity with the Lebanese people, while he had also emphasized that the elections next year will be “the key,” and asked the Lebanese people to be strongly involved in the process of choosing how the country will progress. He also expressed "the appreciation of the UN and the international community for Lebanon's generosity in hosting many refugees due to the conflict in Syria.”
• The UN secretary-general also said that the international support for the Lebanese army and other security institutions is “essential to Lebanon’s stability, and I urge all member states to continue and increase their support.”
• Separately, in a tweet French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday that he had met with Guterres on the eve of his visit to Lebanon and expressed his “solidarity with the Lebanese and the common demand for reforms from their authorities.”