Abdollahian 'dismayed' by embassy meeting boycott, says Iran has no candidate

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein-Amir Abdollahian was dismayed Thursday by the Lebanese opposition’s boycott of a meeting that he called for at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, media reports said.

The embassy had invited all parliamentary blocs to the meeting except for the Lebanese Forces, MP Michel Mouawad and nine members of the Change bloc.

Iran blames the LF for the abduction of four Iranian diplomats at a checkpoint in Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion of the country. Mouawad was meanwhile excluded from the invitations seeing as he is a presidential candidate, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported.

As for the Change bloc, the embassy had only invited the MPs Melhem Khalaf, Yassine Yassine and Elias Jradi. The three of them did not show up. “The embassy excluded their colleagues whom Hezbollah labels as hawks who are opposed to Iran’s policies and role in Lebanon,” the daily said.

The Kataeb Party, the National Liberal Party and a number of independent MPs had declared their boycott of the meeting.

Only 16 out of 25 invited MPs meanwhile attended the meeting, the vast majority of them from the Hezbollah-led camp.

MP Bilal Abdallah of the Democratic Gathering was among those who attended the meeting.

According to Asharq al-Awsat, Abdallah called for “benefitting from the positive atmosphere created by the Saudi-Iranian agreement in order to elect a president.”

He also refused “using Lebanon in the regional conflicts or turning it into a platform for harming any country, especially the Gulf countries.”

“It’s about time for a defense strategy to be devised,” Abdallah said during the meeting, calling on Abdollahian to “mediate with Syria to repatriate the refugees, because their presence in Lebanon has become costly at the financial and security levels.”

Abdollahian for his part talked about the Iranian-Saudi agreement and its impact on regional stability, stressing that his country “wants Lebanon to reach the safety shore” and lamenting that the Ceasar Act is preventing it from offering aid.

As for the presidential file, the sources told the daily that the Iranian FM “did not at all mention the name of (Marada Movement chief Suleiman) Franjieh.”

He instead emphasized that his country “does not have a candidate” and that it would support “what the Lebanese would agree on,” the sources added.