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The representatives of the Group of Five (United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar) held on Tuesday, September 19, a meeting focused on the Lebanese crisis in New York, in conjunction with the UN General Assembly. They did not issue a press release after concluding their talks, as they had done a year earlier when the ministers of foreign affairs of France, the US and Saudi Arabia met on the same occasion to discuss the political crisis plaguing Lebanon, which was already facing the threat of a presidential vacuum. That was on September 21, 2022, five weeks before Michel Aoun’s presidential term came to an end and the presidential vacancy started.
One year on, very little has changed, even within the Group of Five, which still seems to disagree on how to resolve the deadlock in the Lebanese presidential election. This divergence, reported by several local media outlets on Tuesday was reflected in the absence of a press release at the end of the meeting attended by the American Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, the Director of the North Africa and Middle East Department at the Quai D’Orsay, Anne Grillo (former French ambassador to Lebanon), the Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mohammad al-Khalifi, as well as the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia in Beirut, Walid Bukhari, and of Egypt to the UN, Ahmed Ihab Gamaleldin.
The outcome of French President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy for Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian’s recent mission to Beirut, has been assessed. The findings were disappointing for the five countries, particularly for the US, which favors a new dynamic that would encourage the various Lebanese parties to return to parliament to elect a president “capable of uniting the Lebanese and working with local and international actors to overcome the current crisis,” as per the joint declaration issued by the foreign ministers of France, the US and Saudi Arabia in New York on September 21, 2022.
The five-nation group discussed on Tuesday the roadmap to be followed as French mediation has come to a standstill. According to the local media, Leaf emphasized the need for the Paris initiative in favor of Lebanon to be limited in time. Is this a way of saying that it is time for France to let other diplomats step in? There is every reason to believe so. In this case, however, we are witnessing a dual diplomatic effort: Qatar’s diplomacy, which wields soft power and has already stepped in to try to resolve the Lebanese presidential election deadlock, and the diplomatic effort of the Vatican, whose Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, is reportedly due to meet the ambassadors of the Group of Five in the Vatican on Wednesday, according to information obtained by This is Beirut. Meanwhile, Pope Francis is also set to discuss the Lebanese issue with President Macron in Marseille on Sunday.
While Vatican diplomacy remains discreet, Doha’s seems to be more defined. Le Drian may have paved the way for it by advocating in Beirut for the selection of a third candidate. This option is supported by Qatar, which favors the election of the commander-in-chief of the army, General Joseph Aoun, with whom it maintains strong relations.
In his address to the UN General Assembly, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, spoke of the presidential election crisis. He underlined “the danger threatening Lebanese institutions” and stressed “the need to find a solution to the presidential vacuum.”
While a Qatari emissary is expected in Beirut – reportedly shortly – the Qatari ambassador, Saoud Ben Abd el-Rahman al-Than, paid a visit on Tuesday to General Aoun, who also received the Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mohammad ben Abdel Aziz al-Khulayfi, in Yarze in April 2023 during his official visit to Beirut. In December 2022, General Aoun paid an official visit to Doha for discussions concerning Qatari aid to the Lebanese army.
Doha also hosted a meeting of the Group of Five on Lebanon on July 17, 2023. In this context, it will be interesting to see whether a new approach to the Lebanese issue will be inspired by the discussions held at the time, when the Five approached the Lebanese crisis with a sense of caution.
Their ambassadors in Lebanon embarked on a series of contacts with local parties to make it clear that failure to elect a President of the Republic would lead to a global reconsideration of relations with Lebanon.
