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BEIRUT: Lebanese President Michel Aoun called on the permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US — also known as the P5), the UN, the EU and the Arab League to focus on addressing the Syrian refugee crisis.
Aoun met with envoys of the P5, the EU, the UN and the Arab League on Monday and gave them written messages to their heads of state.
“It is imperative that the UN and the international community make every possible effort to provide safe conditions for the safe return of displaced Syrians to their country, especially to calm, accessible or low-tension areas, without associating this to a political solution,” he said.
Aoun added that the “heavy” burden borne by Lebanon as a result of the influx of displaced people “(would not) be tolerated by any other country.”
He also warned of “the consequences of any outbreak that may occur in Lebanon if there is no solution to the crisis in Syria and the return of displaced people to it, as its consequences will not be limited to Lebanon only, but may spill over to many countries.”
During the meeting, Aoun spoke of the political danger of the Syrian exodus saying “the longer the crisis lasts, the more it becomes a cause of internal differences.”
He called on international organizations not to issue statements to intimidate the displaced, saying that “such statements are an incitement to the displaced to remain in Lebanese territory.”
He said that safe areas exist in Syria that can accommodate some of the refugees currently in Lebanon.
“We have received (huge) numbers of displaced people, but we did not initiate the war in Syria, and whoever did does not receive any of them and bears no responsibility for them,” he said. “We did not send anyone to fight there.”
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Lebanon currently hosts 1,051,000 Syrian refugees.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement, has been rallying his supporters in Lebanon and abroad in recent weeks around the need for Syrian refugees to return to their country. Bassil has previously warned of “settling” the displaced in Lebanon saying “We are racist in our belonging to Lebanon. The displaced have to return.” His comments prompted reactions from several political parties stressing the need for the “voluntary and safe return of the displaced.”
Dr. Nasser Yassin, a professor at the American University told Arab News that statements such as Bassil’s increase the tension between the Lebanese and the Syrians.
“Some politicians use this tension in the parliamentary elections,” he said, adding that some deliberately stoked negative public opinion of the Syrians, leading to violence against them.
He also questioned why Syria was not yet addressing the return of refugees to their homeland. “A safe return to Syria is questionable,” he concluded.