Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza will visit Beirut on Tuesday, where he will hold official meetings and talks with political forces including Hezbollah.
Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the presidential palace has not yet set a date for the Venezuelan minister’s meeting with President Michel Aoun due to the latter’s commitments abroad last week, starting with his visit to Moscow and his participation in the Arab Summit in Tunis. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, for his part, apologized for not being able to welcome the minister due to a prescheduled foreign visit.
As for a meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, no date has been set so far as the latter had just returned from Paris where he underwent medical treatment.
The Foreign Ministry is yet to schedule an encounter between Arreaza and Minister Gebran Bassil, who was also on a foreign tour last week and has moved from Moscow to three Eastern European countries.
Sources close to the matter told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Venezuelan minister is expected to brief the Lebanese officials on the troubled situation in his country “because of external interference” and the resulting divisions over the term of President Nicolas Maduro, who is strongly opposed by the United States.
They added that the two-day visit might include meetings with partisan groups that support Venezuela, including Hezbollah, according to the sources.
They explained that Arreaza “will be informed of Lebanon’s official position that is neutrality and self-distancing; because it does not interfere in the internal affairs of any state, nor in the American-Venezuelan conflict; and therefore cannot be classified in favor of neither Maduro nor his rival.”
