Some MPs question Aoun exclusion from Trump summit
The Daily Star/May. 18/17
BEIRUT: Saudi Arabia’s invitation for Prime Minister Saad Hariri to participate in an international conference sparked the ire of several lawmakers and officials Wednesday. Hariri was invited by Saudi Arabia to participate in the Arab-Islamic-American Summit – set to be held in Riyadh on May 20-21 – where top Middle Eastern officials will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump. Critics claim that President Michel Aoun, as Lebanon’s head of state, should represent the country, rather than Hariri as Prime Minister. Many other heads of state from the region and more widely will be attending.
“As Lebanon has the peculiarity of sectarian diversity and because its president is a Christian, it would have been better to invite [Aoun], as president, to the Arab-Islamic-American summit,” Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said via Twitter.
MP Boutros Harb also weighed in. “I am confused, as are the Lebanese people, about Saudi Arabia’s invitation to the Lebanese prime minister to participate in the Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Saudi Arabia,” he said, in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency.
Harb claimed that such regional and international conferences should be attended by kings and presidents.“Traditionally, the president would be invited, who in turn would decide whether to attend or choose someone to represent him,” he said.Harb went on to describe the invitation as a “failure of [Lebanese] foreign policy.”
“This makes us ask for clarifications about the conditions … and reasons that pushed one of Lebanon’s [closest] friends to bypass the president,” Harb said. “For us, the media excuses are not enough,” he added, referring to an alleged deal between Hariri and Aoun that would see Hariri go to the summit in exchange for Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s participation in the delegation Hariri would be heading.
Information Minister Melhem Riachi, speaking after Wednesday’s Cabinet session, told reporters that the ministers discussed the issue but refused to divulge the conversation.
“The Cabinet has its privacy and we do not announce everything [to the media],” Riachi said. “There is certainly a will to be fully committed to the ministerial [statement] and to Lebanon as a whole without any exception.” Last Thursday, Saudi Arabia invited Hariri to the Arab-Islamic-American Summit, which will be held this weekend.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou are among the heads of state invited by King Salman to the summit, where they will meet with Trump – who will give a speech about Islam. The visit to Saudi Arabia is the U.S. president’s first to the Middle East and comes in the wake of severe backlash Trump faced for alleged discrimination against Muslims, after he enforced a travel ban that targeted Muslim majority countries. The ban was later held up by a group of federal judges.
“The aim of the summit is to work toward the establishment of a new partnership to confront extremism and terrorism and to reinforce the values of tolerance and coexistence for the future of our generations in the Arab region,” Walid al-Bukhari, the charge d’affaires of the Saudi Embassy in Lebanon, said after inviting Hariri.
