Priority on balance between Lebanon's communities, say Rai and Iran's ambassador

Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai and Iran's ambassador Mojtaba Amani emphasized the need for Lebanon to "remain a neutral, beautiful and diverse country, like a garden of flowers enriched by its differences and beautified by its unity," adding that "the country would collapse if this balance were to disappear," according to a statement cited by the state-run National News Agency.

The two men spoke from Bkirki, where the head of the Maronite Church received the Iranian diplomat during a rather rare visit, the last being in late October 2022, at the end of former President Michel Aoun's mandate. The meeting was also an opportunity to stress the need to "strengthen stability in the region and in the world, far from devastating wars," and to enable Lebanon to "regain its vitality and its role as a land of meeting, peace, fraternity and coexistence." Rai and Amani also called to "put an end to the language of war, death and destruction that has exhausted the Middle East and impoverished its peoples."

This visit and its timing may come as a surprise given the significant differences between the Maronite patriarch and Iranian diplomacy over the issue of Hezbollah's arsenal. The party refuses to hand over its heavy weapons to the Lebanese Army, as requested by the government. The latter began implementing its project to restore the state's monopoly on arms at the end of last August, through a series of Cabinet decisions, but without the Amal and Hezbollah ministers.

The patriarch has repeatedly reiterated his criticism of Hezbollah's position, believing that it had "emptied resistance [to Israel] of its true meaning" and arguing that it should not mean "submitting to Iran's dictates," according to remarks he made in August on the Saudi channel Al-Arabiya. The two main Christian parties, the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb, share this stance and oppose the party politically. Iran, for its part, has made clear, notably through Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, that it is opposed to the party's disarmament.

Rai also received the superior general of the Lebanese Maronite Order, Abbot Hadi Mahfouz, accompanied by the order's procurator general, Father Georges Hobeika, administrator Father Tony al-Fakhry, the superior of St. John's Monastery in Jbeil, Abbot Simon Abboud, and the superior of St. George School, Abbot Karim al-Touni.

The latter expressed their gratitude to the patriarch for "his care and his participation in the joy of the order" during the inauguration of the Saint Charbel Monastery in Villiers, France, last September.