Hariri to return to Beirut after meeting Macron, Lebanon's top diplomat says

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who has been in Saudi Arabia the last two weeks, will return to Beirut after meeting in Paris with France President Emmanuel Macron, Lebanon's foreign minister said here Friday.


Hariri "went to Saudi Arabia on a working visit as prime minister of Lebanon. He must continue to be treated as prime minister of Lebanon, a sovereign country," Gebran Bassil told a press conference in Moscow after meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Though Hariri announced his resignation in a Nov. 4 speech from Riyadh, the Lebanese government - from President Michel Aoun on down - refuses to acknowledge the resignation.

Macron, talking to reporters at a European Union summit in Sweden, took a similar line, saying that Hariri would be received with the honors due to a prime minister, as his "resignation has not been recognized by his government."

"Paris will be simply a stop on (Hariri's) way back to Beirut," Bassil said in Moscow.
  EFE/EPA
 17/11/17