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Iranian FM supports Lebanese dialogue to elect new president

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (R) meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (L) at the Governmental Palace in Beirut on April 27, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 27 April 2023
NAJIA HOUSSARI
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Iranian FM supports Lebanese dialogue to elect new president

  • Foreign ambassadors urge meaningful reforms to save economy
  • Envoys voice dismay over slow progress in politicians’ efforts to tackle crisis
Updated 27 April 2023
NAJIA HOUSSARI

BEIRUT: Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has called on Lebanon’s parliamentary rivals to overcome their political deadlock and elect a president.

However, the minister, who met with Lebanese officials on Thursday, failed to convey any Iranian initiative to resolve the country’s political crisis.

Instead, he noted that Tehran was ready to support “any agreement between the Lebanese parties regarding the presidential election.”

Amir-Abdollahian will hold a press conference on Friday to conclude his official visit to Lebanon.

The Iranian official’s visit to Beirut followed political developments in the region and the Saudi-Iranian understanding. It also falls on the 18th anniversary of the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.

“There have been new developments in the region in recent weeks, and this will be in the interest of all the region, the Islamic world, and Lebanon,” he said.

Amir-Abdollahian said that Iran has always supported dialogue and negotiations when it comes to tension and crises in the region, and does not believe that wars are the solution to such issues.

“We are concerned about the military clashes in Sudan, and we will continue to exert our efforts and focus on strengthening peace in the region, especially in Afghanistan, Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan and Libya,” he said.

The Iranian official met with Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and his Lebanese counterpart Abdullah Bou Habib.

Following his meeting with Bou Habib, Amir-Abdollahian said: “We discussed comprehensive cooperation between Iran and Lebanon, and stressed our full readiness to enhance cooperation in all fields.”

He said that Iran encouraged all parties in Lebanon to speed up the presidential elections and supported any election or agreement regarding the next president.

“The officials in Lebanon, and all the parties, have the ability and the necessary competence to reach an agreement and consensus on electing a president,” he added.

Lebanese lawmakers have failed to elect a new president for six months amid continuing divisions between Hezbollah and its allies on the one hand, and MPs of parties opposing Hezbollah’s policy in Lebanon on the other.

Hezbollah insists on supporting candidate Suleiman Frangieh for the presidency, while several political parties and reformist MPs oppose this option.

Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Beirut on Wednesday on an official visit that included other countries in the region.

In a statement at Rafic Hariri International Airport, he highlighted “Iran’s strong support for the Lebanese government and people, the Lebanese army, and the resistance in Lebanon.”

He also underlined “the new, positive and constructive developments in the region,” noting that “Lebanon’s security, prosperity, well-being and progress will be in the region’s interest.”

Bou Habib said that an Iranian offer to provide assistance in the electricity sector was discussed during his meeting with Amir-Abdollahian.

Iran made an offer to Lebanese officials in 2021 to set up two power plants — one in the south and another in a southern suburb of Beirut — each providing about 1,000 megawatts, within a period of 18 months, at a low cost.

The electricity issue constitutes half of Lebanon’s financial crisis, with the total deficit in this sector over the last two decades amounting to about $36 billion, or about 45 percent of the total public debt.

However, Lebanon was reluctant to accept the offer, fearing US sanctions imposed on Iran.

Meanwhile, the ambassadors of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, US and EU issued a joint statement on the situation in Lebanon, saying: “This month marks one year since Lebanon reached a staff-level agreement or SLA with the International Monetary Fund.

“The agreement promised over $3 billion in assistance to support Lebanon’s economic recovery.

“The government pledged to quickly implement a comprehensive package of structural reforms (prior actions) in order to reach a formal agreement with the IMF.

“It is disappointing that Lebanon’s political actors have made only limited progress in implementing these prior actions,” the statement read.

The ambassadors added: “While some conditions have been met, the bank secrecy law proved insufficient, no progress has been made with respect to allocating financial sector losses, and authorities must work to audit Lebanon’s major banks and unify Lebanon’s exchange rates.

“The urgency could not be more obvious. The country faces one of the worst economic crises in modern history.

“People in Lebanon are suffering. Inflation has reached 186 percent. The Central Bank’s external reserves continue shrinking.”

They also warned: “The IMF itself has said that, if reforms are not implemented rapidly, Lebanon will be trapped in a never-ending crisis.

“With or without an IMF program, decisive structural reforms are necessary to enable Lebanon’s recovery.”

The joint statement added: “The absence of a president and an actual government is one of the great obstacles to complete reforms.

“The answers to Lebanon’s economic crisis can only come from within Lebanon and they start with meaningful reforms.

“Now is the time for the Lebanese authorities to seize the opportunity presented by an agreement with the IMF.

“Otherwise, the economy will deteriorate further, with ever more severe consequences for the Lebanese people.”

The envoys’ statement comes amid a worsening financial crisis, with value of the national currency dropping by more than 98 percent.

Topics: Lebanon Iran

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’Pay or he dies’, families told as more Egyptians risk Mediterranean crossing

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
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’Pay or he dies’, families told as more Egyptians risk Mediterranean crossing

  • Weeks after Hamdy Ibrahim left his village in Egypt’s Nile Delta hoping to reach Europe, his brother’s phone rang with a chilling message from Libya: pay now or the boy would die
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
KAFR ABDALLAH AZIZAH: Weeks after Hamdy Ibrahim left his village in Egypt’s Nile Delta hoping to reach Europe, his brother’s phone rang with a chilling message from Libya: pay now or the boy would die.
A smuggler was on the line, demanding 190,000 pounds ($4,000) to secure the 18-year-old’s place on a boat, part of a rising exodus that last year made Egyptians the top African and second-largest global group of irregular migrants to Europe.
“I told him we couldn’t afford it,” his brother Youssef told AFP from Kafr Abdallah Aziza in Sharqiya, an hour’s drive from Cairo.
“But he warned: ‘Handle it like the other families do. Otherwise he’ll be thrown into the sea.’“
Hamdy left in November with a dozen peers, vanishing without a word after contacting smugglers online. Soon, calls poured in from Libya.
Families were told the men would “be slaughtered or thrown into the mountains or sea” if they did not pay, said 55-year-old Abed Gouda, whose brother Mohamed was among them.
Desperate parents borrowed heavily, sold gold and gave up what little they had to save their sons. But weeks later, they learned the boat carrying the group had sunk near the Greek island of Crete.
Seventeen people died — including six from the village — and 15 remain missing, among them Hamdy and Mohamed.
More than 17,000 Egyptians reached Europe via the Mediterranean last year, while 1,328 people of all nationalities died or disappeared on the world’s deadliest migration route, according to Frontex and the UN.
In recent years, a currency collapse and soaring inflation have deepened poverty nationwide, leaving much of Egypt’s more than 50 million people under 30 feeling they have no future at home.
In Kafr Abdallah Aziza, the pressures are clear: cracked irrigation canals cut jagged lines through unpaved roads, carrying only a trickle of water to parched fields.
Women ride past on donkey carts, piled high with vegetables, jolting over potholes deep enough to trap a wheel.
Half-built brick houses sit on once-fertile land, where families eke out meagre livings through small trades or day labor.
When AFP visited, relatives of the missing packed into a local elder’s cramped home, showing WhatsApp and Facebook groups filled with blurry images, unverified lists and rumors.
’Lack of hope’
“Half of our young people are now considering illegal migration,” said village pharmacist Refaat Abdelsamad, 40.
Since 2022, the Egyptian pound has lost over two-thirds of its value. Bread prices have tripled and fuel costs have risen four times in two years.
That same year, Egyptians were already among the largest groups attempting irregular migration, with the UN recording more than 21,000 arrivals.
“Desperation and economic deterioration are major factors,” Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told AFP.
There is a “lack of hope that things will improve.”
Hamdy earned just 500 Egyptian pounds ($10) a week as a plumber. He left, his brother said, because he “just wanted a better life.”
After Egypt curbed irregular departures from its own shores in 2016, routes shifted west through Libya, where smugglers move migrants across the desert in minibuses and pickup trucks — a journey Nour Khalil of the Egypt Refugees Platform calls “more dangerous.”
The UN says Egyptians rely on “well-established smuggling networks” that charge high fees while survivors report “arbitrary detention, torture, rape, sexual slavery, starvation and forced labor,” according to French charity SOS Mediterranee.
In 2024, the EU signed a 7.4-billion-euro economic development deal with Cairo, in part to curb irregular migration.
But Kaldas said border controls miss the root cause: “People need to feel secure in their homes.”
Across Egypt, Khalil said migration has become “a widespread goal,” even among educated professionals.
“Those who can leave legally do so. Those who can’t are pushed into irregular migration, even if the journey carries extreme risks,” he told AFP.
’I’d do it again’
In Kafr Moustafa Effendi, families still mourn the dozens of young men who died or vanished in 2023 when a rusty fishing boat carrying 750 migrants capsized off Greece — one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, now the subject of multiple court cases over alleged coast guard negligence.
Islam and El-Sayed, both 18 then, were aboard after their families scraped together 140,000 pounds each, their cousin Abdallah Ghanem told AFP.
“Back then, people caught minibuses to Libya as casually as if they were traveling to another town in Egypt.”
Despite the grief, the hopeful cling to success stories.
Construction worker Hassan Darwish left Sharqiya in 2023, believing he had “no future” in Egypt.
Now 24 and living in Rome, he says he earns about $700 monthly while awaiting asylum.
“I saw horrors,” he told AFP by phone. “But I’d do it again.”
He now supports his mother and sick brother, which “would never have been possible in Egypt.”

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