Aoun-Berri hold ‘excellent’ Baabda meeting on UNIFIL, elections, parliament

President Joseph Aoun and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri held an "excellent" meeting in Baabda on Friday, Berri said to press when leaving the presidential palace.

According to a message posted on X by the presidency, Aoun informed Berri about the results of his foreign visits, notably in the Gulf. The two men also carried out an "evaluation of the municipal elections" taking place this May and discussed the situation in the southern Lebanon and the issue of renewing the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), scheduled for August.

Berri addressed the UNIFIL topic in an interview published Friday by the daily al-Joumhouria, calling on southern residents to remain "calm" after dozens of incidents with peacekeepers occurred. Aoun and Berri also "studied the possibility of opening an extraordinary session of Parliament.'

According to Article 32 of the Constitution, Parliament "meets every year in two ordinary sessions. The first opens on the first Tuesday following March 15 and ends at the end of May. The second opens on the first Tuesday following October 15.' Article 33 stipulates that the president, in agreement with the head of government, "may convene the Cabinet for extraordinary sessions by a decree that will determine the date of opening and closing of the sessions, as well as their agenda." "The president of the Republic is required to convene the Cabinetor extraordinary sessions if an absolute majority of all its members request it," according to the Constitution.

While the issue of the monopoly of weapons was addressed during the meeting, according to the presidency, it is worth noting that Berri is the de facto mediator of Hezbollah on disarmament and that the meeting in Baabda came as recent tensions arose between Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Hezbollah this matter.