Aoun calms Shiite Duo's security, political and reconstruction concerns, report says
President Joseph Aoun held two meetings prior to his election with the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad and Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide MP Ali Hassan Khalil, a media report said.
Aoun’s first meeting with Raad and Khalil was held on Wednesday night while the second was held between the two electoral rounds on Thursday, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.
“Aoun stressed to them that reaching agreements with the Duo was a priority to him and that he was not concerned with those who were trying to consider his election as a political triumph” for the anti-Hezbollah camp, informed sources told the daily.
“Aoun calmed the Duo’s security, political, military and reconstruction concerns, which led to him receiving the Duo’s votes in parliament,” the sources added.
Sources close to the new president meanwhile told the newspaper that the talks with the Shiite Duo were aimed at “boosting the elements of confidence and reassurance.”
The daily however said that “the main and more important part of the agreement was finalized by Speaker Berri with the Americans and Saudis, and also by Hezbollah with the French.”
“The understanding between Aoun and the Duo placed guidelines for the relation between the two sides in the coming period, which are related to the new tenure’s agenda, starting by reconstruction and the (new) government’s shape all the way to the issue of the resistance and its role and protection,” al-Akhbar added, noting that “there is reportedly an agreement to keep PM Najib Mikati until the upcoming parliamentary elections, in line with an agreement that was reached with the five-party group for Lebanon.”
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