World powers ask outside countries to stop interfering in Lebanon

Lebanons Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri speaks with French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian

PARIS (Reuters) Dec. 8, 2017 - World powers attempted to shore up Lebanon’s stability on Friday by pushing Iran to stop interfering in its politics and urging Hezbollah to rein in its regional activities.

Lebanon plunged into crisis on Nov. 4 when Saad al-Hariri resigned as prime minister while he was in Saudi Arabia, saying he feared assassination and criticizing the Saudis’ regional arch-rival Iran along with its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

After international pressure and negotiations between Lebanese political factions, he rescinded his resignation on Tuesday and his coalition government, which includes Hezbollah, reaffirmed a state policy of staying out of conflicts in Arab states.

The International Lebanon Support Group (GIS), a body that includes the five members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- met in Paris on Friday to try to reinforce Hariri’s hand to prevent a new escalation.

“Disassociation applies to everyone - inside and outside,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said at a news conference with Hariri after the meeting.

Without naming Hezbollah, he urged all sides not to “import regional tensions” into Lebanon.

Hariri said that any breach of the policy of non-interference would drag Lebanon back into the “danger zone”.

“The disassociation policy is in the overarching interest of Lebanon,” he said.

The meeting had earlier been opened by President Emmanuel Macron. He has invested political capital in the crisis and leveraged France’s close relations with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to secure a deal that saw Hariri travel to Paris and open the door to a resolution of the crisis last month.

“(The Group) calls upon all Lebanese parties to implement this tangible policy of disassociation from and non-interference in external conflicts, as an important priority,” the final communique read.

Saudi concern over the influence wielded by Shi‘ite Muslim Iran and Hezbollah in other Arab states had been widely seen as the root cause of the crisis, which raised fears for Lebanon’s economic and political stability.

The Lebanese policy of “dissociation” was declared in 2012 to keep the deeply divided state out of regional conflicts such as the civil war in neighboring Syria. Despite the policy, Hezbollah is heavily involved there, sending thousands of fighters to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He said that while the diplomatic language for the final declaration would not single out any party, the message was that Iran should not influence Lebanese politics and that Hezbollah should rein in its regional activities.