Caretaker Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib in Moscow, Nov. 22, 2021. (Credit: Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP)
BEIRUT — Lebanon's foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib said that the vast majority of displaced Syrians migrate for "economic reasons" during a meeting with national security advisor and head of Cyprus's Intelligence Service Tassos Tzionis, state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.
"95 percent of the displaced Syrians migrate for economic reasons, and we must address this, in cooperation with the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea," Bou Habib said.
Lebanon hosts around two million Syrians including 800,000 registered with the United Nations. The Lebanese army often thwarts smuggling operations by sea and arrests the smugglers and would-be migrants. In recent months, Cyprus has seen a surge of asylum seekers, most of them Syrian, arriving by sea from Syria and Lebanon. Cypriot Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou visited Lebanon on July 27 and agreed with Lebanese officials to increase information exchange and conduct joint maritime patrols to stop migrants from leaving Lebanon or Syria.
The meeting also discussed the maritime borders between Lebanon and Cyprus. Bou Habib said that Lebanon understands "Cyprus's desire to end the demarcation of the maritime borders between the two countries."
Although Lebanon and Cyprus reached a formula to modify the demarcation of the maritime border between the two countries in Oct. 2022, a deal has not yet been finalized.
Bou Habib and Tzionis also discussed the war between Hamas and Israel which started on Oct. 7.
"What happened on Oct. 7...will be repeated again if peace and a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause are not reached," said Bou Habib.