Lebanon’s Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri has decided put his resignation on hold in response to a request from President Michel Aoun, who asked him to wait in order to allow for “dialogue.”
Hariri arrived home late Tuesday after having been away since November 3, when he fled an assassination attempt, appearing in Riyadh on the Al Arabiya television network to announce — to the shock of his fellow Lebanese — that he had decided to resign his post.
Lebanon’s government has been in crisis since Hariri’s announcement, in which he blamed Iran and its Lebanese proxy, the Hezbollah terrorist group, for his decision, saying the “chaos and destruction” in the Middle East were being sowed by Tehran.
A dual national holding Saudi citizenship, Hariri has spent the past several weeks conferring with various leaders in the Gulf and on Saturday with French President Emmanuel Macron as well.
Earlier in the day o=On Tuesday he met with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi before flying to Beirut, where he landed in time to join the country’s Independence Day celebrations that night.