Western diplomatic sources revealed to This Is Beirut that the Minister in the Saudi Royal Court responsible for the Lebanon dossier, Nizar Al-Aloula, will visit Paris mid-January and meet with French officials in the “Lebanon Cell” in the Elysee, following changes and new appointments among its members.
Cooperation with French presidential special envoy and former minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will continue, unless he is assigned a ministerial portfolio in the new French government.
According to the sources, Aloula will try to revive the joint French-Saudi fund to help the Lebanese people through non-governmental institutions.
The Saudi official will visit Lebanon at the end of the month for meetings with a large scope of Lebanese officials and politicians. The visit will take place shortly after a meeting of the Quintet group (France, the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt) in Paris, which aims to elaborate a road map to expedite the election of a president in parallel with the international community’s efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
