Riyadh-SANA
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Saudi regime and Lebanon "want to engage fully to restore their relationship."
At the end of his visit to the Saudi city of Jeddah, Macron revealed today that he had made a phone call with the Crown Prince of the Saudi regime, Mohammed bin Salman, to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, as part of the initiative to resolve the crisis between Riyadh and Beirut.
"We made commitments with Saudi Arabia to Lebanon, which are to work together, support reforms, enable the country to emerge from the crisis and preserve its sovereignty," Macron said on his Twitter account.
A joint French-Saudi statement was issued in which the two sides "agreed to work to ensure that the Lebanese government implements comprehensive reforms and also agreed to establish a Saudi-French mechanism for humanitarian assistance in a framework that ensures transparency."
In turn, the Presidency of the Lebanese Council of Ministers stated that Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that the contact that took place between him and Macron and bin Salman is an "important step towards reviving relations with Saudi Arabia," stressing his government's commitment to reform.
The Lebanese Minister of Information, George Kordahi, announced yesterday his resignation from the Lebanese government in order to help push forward the French initiative to restore relations between Lebanon and the Saudi regime and the rest of the Gulf states.
At the end of last October, the Saudi regime summoned its ambassador to Lebanon and demanded the departure of the Lebanese ambassador in Riyadh and announced the cessation of all Lebanese imports into its lands in response to Qardahi's position on the aggression against Yemen, which came before his appointment as a minister in Mikati's government.
Qardahi had criticized the Saudi aggression on Yemen since March 2015, describing it as absurd and calling for its cessation, after it left tens of thousands of victims, displaced people and massive destruction of infrastructure.
