Report: Syria-Lebanon Contact Issue Strains Aoun-Hariri Ties

The President’s remarks about restoring contacts between Lebanon and Syria was reportedly the trigger for the economic crisis in Lebanon and for straining ties between President Michel Aoun and PM Saad Hariri, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper reported on Friday.

According to the daily, informed sources said: “The President's remarks about communicating with the Syrian regime lies behind the security financial and economic crisis witnessed in Lebanon, which spread to allies of the political settlement, that is between Aoun and Hariri and to their political parties," the Free Patriotic Movement and al-Mustaqbal.

Amid fresh tensions between the two parties, a Tuesday meeting between FPM chief Jebran Bassil and cadres of al-Mustaqbal Movement has been called off.

The same sources said the tension was exacerbated by the belief of Aoun’s team that Hariri was in the picture of proposing to communicate with Damascus as a pressure on the Americans and Europeans and everything that links the return of the displaced Syrians to the political solution in Syria.

But after the presidential speech in New York, some have “raised the voice of rejection, which necessitated Hariri to reconsider the matter,” said the sources.

Coordination between Lebanon and Syria is a contentious issue in Lebanon.

Some of Lebanon's political parties support it, while others including Hariri, categorically reject it and blame the Syrian regime for the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri.