Transport minister says firm measures taken at Beirut airport

Public Works and Transportation Minister Fayez Rasamny has said that Lebanese authorities have “taken all the necessary measures at Beirut’s international airport.”

In an interview with al-Hurra television, he added that the “firm” measures are aimed at “protecting travelers.”

He also said that “the presence of a second airport in Lebanon is necessary and present in the government’s plan” and that “there are very modern scanning and inspection machines at Beirut’s port.”

Rasamny had accompanied the ministers of finance and interior on an inspection tour of the airport on Saturday.

The tour came days after $2.5 million in cash were seized in the possession of a Lebanese man coming from Turkey.

The man is being questioned about the source of the money and its destination, amid reports that the cash was destined for Hezbollah.

Israel had claimed that Iranian envoys and Turkish citizens had been smuggling money from Tehran and Istanbul to Beirut.

Lebanese authorities later suspended inbound and outbound flights to Iran indefinitely after the United States, which helped broker a November 27 Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, warned Lebanon that Israel might shoot the planes down.

The move prompted protests from supporters of Hezbollah, who blocked the road to the country's only international airport, while Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said the government's decision to halt flights from Iran was "implementing an Israeli order."