Macaron meets Sisi secretly: initiative for the survival of Hariri ... and a French envoy to Beirut

"Finally, President Saad Hariri returned to Beirut after being detained and forced to resign in Saudi Arabia and then moved to Paris with Arab and international mediators. If the prime minister's visit to Egypt on his way to Beirut to meet with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is understandable, due to the role played by Egypt in his release from house arrest in Saudi Arabia, his stopover for a quick meeting in Cyprus last night with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasidis remains unclear.

However, a well-informed French source confirmed to the «news» that a meeting held in the past hours between Sissi and French President Emmanuel Makron remained out of the limelight, during which a joint initiative to deal with the situation in Lebanon was agreed. The source refused to confirm or deny that the meeting was held in Cyprus after a brief visit to the French president to meet his Egyptian counterpart who visited Nicosia to participate in a trilateral summit with his Greek and Cypriot counterparts. The source said that the two presidents agreed on the basic constants, namely to prevent dragging Lebanon into a political confrontation leading to escalation and tension of security, political and economic. They also affirmed their commitment to Hariri's survival as prime minister. According to the source, Macaron will send a senior assistant to Beirut in the next two days to meet with the three presidents and other leaders to focus on the need to prevent a government vacuum and to explain the nature of contacts with the Saudi side. The source pointed out that Hariri in the atmosphere of these contacts, and that the French and Egyptian sides informed him of the need to hold comprehensive consultations in Beirut, and to keep the door open for his return to the premiership, whether through the survival of the current government or through the restructuring of a political government does not exclude any force.

Hariri is expected to take part in the Independence Day celebrations, along with Presidents Michel Aoun and Nabih Berri, on the occasion of a meeting between the president and Baabda. But his return and subsequent developments have left a split of opinions, not only within his close team, as has been the case for the past few days, but also in Aoun's and March 8's, some of whose figures are optimistic, while others are likely to start a major political crisis.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, for example, read in the letters sent by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Aoun on the occasion of Independence Day and the congratulations received by the President of the Republic from US President Donald Trump. He told his visitors yesterday that these messages "broke the poison." "So far nothing is clear. We are waiting for Hariri to return to see what he has decided. If he resigns, we will have gone through a big crisis, and we are ready to give him self-assurance. If he decides to stick to his resignation, we will have a big dilemma. " "The Egyptians and the French continue to mediate, and obviously they are playing a positive and influential role. Egypt played a key role and count on it ».

Berri's optimism is cautious because of the data and his connection that Hariri has shown "clear cooperation" in the last three days, saying that "he was prepared to settle and return from resigning in return for guarantees." Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah showed great flexibility in his last three appearances.

Minister Gebran Bassil is close to Berri's optimism that Hariri's resignation is still negotiable, unlike Aoun, who was quoted by sources in the Free Patriotic Movement as not satisfied with the next stage. The sources say that what is important to the President now is the survival of the government, and that he will wait if the Prime Minister insisted on his resignation, pending further contacts. If he apologizes or can not write, he will seek to agree with him to form a government with a president to agree on, to ensure a functioning government while refusing to keep the country under the sword of business.

In parallel, the division within Hariri's group is still the same, among those who say that the resignation is irreversible and who believes that Aoun can reach agreement on a new settlement. According to sources familiar with Hariri's demands expected, in implementation of the Saudi demands, under three titles: Aoun's commitment to self-confidence, the withdrawal of Hezbollah from all Arab squares, including Syria, and to ensure the cessation of media campaigns against the Kingdom from Lebanon.

Egyptian protest ... and the exemption of Sobhan?
On the other hand, they understand from the Lebanese-Arab international communication that the majority of countries concerned with the Lebanese issue, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, France, Britain and the United States, have affirmed their commitment to Hariri's survival at the head of the government and their rejection of any step that threatens stability.

The Egyptian side tried to adopt the idea that Cairo would guarantee Hariri's commitment to a ceiling acceptable to Saudi Arabia and America, and offered Saudi Arabia to sponsor Hariri instead of Riyadh. But the answers were not conclusive. Cairo's concern is that the results of the Arab tour of Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri last week revealed the extent of concern, especially in Kuwait and Jordan, by the Saudi crown prince. Even the Egyptians heard in Abu Dhabi that the UAE officials were not aware of what happened with Hariri, and that they helped convince Ibn Salman to leave him back to Beirut.

According to Arab diplomatic sources, during the meeting of Arab foreign ministers, the Egyptians proved that Saudi Arabia had conducted a review, under US pressure, of the developments of the past two weeks, and that Ibn Salman had one concern: how to strike a big blow in Yemen. The source pointed to an Egyptian protest that Ibn Salman continued to ignore Cairo in his regional steps. She said that «Shukri stressed during his tour that Cairo does not accept to be informed of the steps through the media, and will not accept the recurrence of some of the mistakes that accompanied