Date: Feb 19, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Hariri tackles CEDRE in first meeting after confidence vote Joseph Haboush| The Daily Star BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s new government hit the ground running Monday in its first week since earning the confidence vote of more than 85 percent of the country’s lawmakers. To kick-start his work, Hariri held a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with the International Financial Institutions, looking at the steps needed to accelerate the implementation of decisions made at CEDRE. World Bank Regional Director Saroj Kumar Jha said the pledges - upward of $12 billion in soft loans and grants - were not at risk. “We look forward to working with the government of Lebanon to help implement the priority projects in various sectors in the economy,” he said. Jha said that all the IFIs reconfirmed their support to Lebanon of the implementation of the Capital Investment Plan, and discussed the projects they will support. “This is very positive news for the country.” The meeting gathered representatives of Arab, European and international funds and financial organizations that had pledged support to Lebanon at the CEDRE conference held in Paris last spring. These included Jha and Nabil Jisr, the head of the Council of Development and Reconstruction. A senior adviser to Hariri, Nadim Munla, said the meeting was in part aimed at making sure all sectors received substantial funding for projects. “The other objective of the meeting was to agree with them on speeding up the process of approving and implementation of the projects. At the end of the meeting, we agreed on several steps to expedite the period between identifying a project and starting to spend on it - so it is 12 to 15 months,” Munla said after the meeting. “They also expressed their readiness to provide additional aid if Lebanon carries out the reforms mentioned in the ministerial statement.” Playing down fears that the aid would be misused, Munla noted a new law for tenders. He cited as another example the fact that any “loan that comes from the World Bank is subject to the control of the World Bank.” In response to a question on whether the projects funded through CEDRE will be required to employ Syrian refugees, and potentially lead to them not returning to their homeland, Munla reiterated Lebanese law allows Syrian nationals to work in three sectors: agriculture, environment and infrastructure. “I think that there will be a normal Syrian labor force in infrastructure. In Lebanon during the 1990s, there were more than half a million Syrians working in infrastructure, and this is not new in Lebanon.” Also considering the fate of the close to 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon Monday was Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh Gharib, who traveled to Damascus in order to discuss the issue with Syrian officials. A source from Gharib’s office confirmed to The Daily Star that Hussein Makhlouf, Syria’s local administration and environment minister and the head of the Coordination Agency for the Return of Displaced Syrians, had officially invited Gharib to Syria for the talks. The source said they would focus on the “safe return” of refugees. Gharib announced earlier this month that his office would not allow Syrian refugees to resettle and integrate into Lebanese host communities, and would prioritize facilitating their return. The newly appointed minister is loyal to MP Talal Arslan’s Lebanese Democratic Party, which has close ties to the Syrian regime. Lebanese politicians are sharply divided on the issue of the country’s relationship with Syria. While Hezbollah and its allies support normalizing ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, the Future Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the LDP’s rival - the Progressive Socialist Party - say normal ties are not possible until a political solution is reached in Syria. Although a source close to Hariri refused to comment on whether the premier had been aware of the trip beforehand, Gharib told TV channel Al Jadeed that Hariri was aware of the trip. “We said that we would not do anything secretly. Yes, we went to Syria, and Lebanon’s interests are above all else,” he said. The Lebanese minister said that an agreement was being worked on with the Syrian side to guarantee that refugees who return will be safe. “We will not allow refugees to go back and be in danger. This is why we went [to Syria today].” However, Gharib refused to say that this was a first step toward normalizing ties with Damascus. “We are only working in the refugee case. Let each person work in their [domain].” The trip is sure to raise controversy during the next Cabinet session, scheduled for Thursday. Sources close to Maarab, the Lebanese Forces’ headquarters, told the Central News Agency that this was a “provocative” trip ahead of Thursday’s meeting by a minister “affiliated with the [Lebanese] president.” The LF ministers, according to the Maarab sources, will ask questions about the visit in a “calm” manner. Separately, in an interview published Monday, LF head Samir Geagea rejected attempts to characterize the premier’s new government as “Hezbollah’s government.” Speaking with Kuwaiti Alrai newspaper, Geagea said that “some people” with nothing better to do have been exaggerating Hezbollah’s power in the new Cabinet, “nagging all the time and not seeing things as they really are.” Geagea pointed to a recent visit to Lebanon from Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Hezbollah backer Iran. Despite Zarif offering his country’s readiness to assist Lebanon on different levels, including providing arms to the Lebanese Army and electricity, the visit “didn’t lead to any memorandums of understanding, not even one,” Geagea said. “So how is this Hezbollah’s government?” “The Iranian offers were more of a media and advertising [effort],” the LF leader said. Geagea also said that Saudi Arabia, given its rivalry with Iran, would not allow the Islamic Republic to have an outsize influence in Lebanon. A day after Zarif’s visit, Saudi royal court envoy Nizar al-Aloula arrived in Lebanon, meeting with Geagea, among other Lebanese officials. “The Saudi approach is to not leave Lebanon to Iran,” Geagea told Alrai when asked about the meeting. Hariri’s new government was formed on Jan. 31 after more than eight months of negotiations. A main reason for the delay was a demand from six Hezbollah-backed Sunni MPs from outside Hariri’s Future Movement to be represented in the new government, eliciting outrage from Hezbollah’s opponents.