Top Lebanese officials greeted Arab leaders Saturday upon their arrival in Beirut for the 2019 Arab Economic and Social Development summit.
President Michel Aoun led a delegation, including caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, to the Beirut airport to greet Omani Deputy Prime Minister for International Cooperation Asaad Bin Tariq.
Later in the day, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri welcomed Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Algerian National Assembly Speaker Abdelkader Bensalah and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah al-Khalid al-Sabah. Next to arrive was Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, who was followed by Sudanese First Vice President Gen. Bakri Hassan Salih and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Other delegates will continue arriving throughout the evening for the summit.
Early Saturday, Qatar announced that Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will personally attend the summit despite rumors to the contrary.
The summit’s organizers, meanwhile, have said that Somalian President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has said he will not be participating and will instead send a representative.
This means that Qatar will join Mauritania as one of only two Arab nations sending heads of state to the conference; besides Somalia, several other nations announced last minute that they would send lower-level representatives.
The Arab leaders’ decision to send proxies to Lebanon came after supporters from Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal Movement tore down and burned the Libyan flag in protest of its invitation to the conference. The North African country subsequently announced that it would boycott the summit.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
