BEIRUT: The international community is greatly concerned about the stability of Lebanon, but stands firmly behind the country as it faces threats from Islamist militants, the United Nations special envoy to Syria said Thursday.
The remarks by Staffan de Mistura, made after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam, underscored the international community’s growing worries over the threats posed to Lebanon’s stability by ISIS and Nusra Front militants who battled the Lebanese Army in August and are now holed up on the Bekaa town’s outskirts.
De Mistura, currently on a regional tour aimed at promoting a political solution to end the war in Syria, now in its fourth year, also held talks with Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. He also met with Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, whose party has sent fighters to Syria to help President Bashar Assad’s forces in the war against rebels.
“The international community is very concerned about the stability of Lebanon, which has been paying a heavy price due to the proximity of the ongoing conflict in Syria,” de Mistura told reporters after holding talks with Salam at the Grand Serail.
“The international community stands firmly with Lebanon. We are fully aware of the price and the burden that Lebanon and the Lebanese people are paying and have paid during this period. We also see with concern what has been happening just recently, just on the border,” he said.
The Lebanese Army battled ISIS and Nusra Front militants for five days in Arsal in early August after the militants briefly overran the town. The Army has since then engaged in intermittent clashes with militants near the border. The militants are still holding captive 27 soldiers and policemen they captured during the fierce fighting.
Declaring that Lebanon’s stability is important for the world, De Mistura said: “At the same time, we are confident that, with the international community, Lebanon once again will be able to overcome this period. The stability of Lebanon is important for the region and for the international community. And of course that also means that the Lebanese political environment should be stabilizing the sooner and the better because the stronger Lebanon is, the easier it will be to face what I think is going to be a very crucial period but hopefully with some type or form of political process in Syria.”
The U.N. envoy said he discussed with Salam the security of the region rattled by the recent military advances of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
He said this is his second tour of the region since he was appointed the U.N. envoy to Syria. He added that he plans to visit Iran, Turkey and other regional countries, in addition to New York and Moscow.
“We are still in the process of understanding what has changed in the region in terms of some perception of how to address in a political format, through a political process, the conflict in Syria due to new factors which have taken place in the region and in particular [the expansion of] Daesh,” de Mistura said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
However, diplomatic sources said de Mistura’s attempts to relaunch the political process in Syria would not be easy given the fact that the international community was preoccupied with the war against ISIS.
“The international community’s delay in finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis will prolong the crisis and increase threats in Syria and Lebanon,” the sources said.
During the meeting also attended by U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly, de Mistura and Salam also discussed the Syrian refugee crisis and other regional issues. He said the international community must help Lebanon cope with the presence of more than 1 million Syria refugees in its territory.
“It is an issue [Syrian refugees] that Lebanon needs to be helped on. There is a limit we know to what one country alone can do and that is why the international community must and has to help Lebanon to face this difficult crisis,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Qassem at the latter’s office in Beirut’s southern suburbs, de Mistura said his visit to Hezbollah was part of consultations with all the parties that could help find a political solution in the region, particularly in Syria.
Viewpoints were identical [with Hezbollah] that a solution in Syria should be a political one, de Mistura said.
For his part, Qassem wished the U.N. envoy success in his mission, while stressing that the only way to end the war in Syria is through a political solution.
“It has been confirmed that a political solution will save Syria and its people. Everyone must expect painful concessions in this respect. But it is the only solution at hand. There is no other solution,” Qassem said, according to a statement released by Hezbollah’s office.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov has said de Mistura would visit Moscow Oct. 21. “We consider his arrival to be important because by that time he will have visited all the main capitals of the region and met with many political figures,” Gatilov told the Interfax news agency. “We expect him to bring fresh ideas as a result of his contacts in the region.”
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