Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi reiterated that Egypt extends its helping hands to the international community to exert joint efforts to support Lebanon and grant its people a better future.
President Sisi said that Egypt calls upon the international community to exert all possible efforts to assist and support the Lebanese people in overcoming the devastating effects of the August 2020 Beirut explosion and rebuilding the city.
In his virtual speech during the Lebanon Donor Conference, which was held at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, President Sisi reaffirmed Egypt’s full support and solidarity with the Lebanese people and stressed that it stands ready to assist Lebanon by dispatching more emergency aid.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, US President Joe Biden, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, as well as the European Union and its various institutions, international and regional organisations, and a large number of foreign ministers of various world countries were present at the meeting, Presidency Spokesman Ambassador Bassam Radi said.
“Lebanon, which has always been a beacon of culture, art, and thought, and an important tributary of Arab creativity, is still able, with the determination of its sons, to become as thriving and unique as we have always known it to be,” Sisi said, addressing the Lebanese people.
President Sisi called on loyal Lebanese patriots, regardless of their positions, to join hands and to distance their country from regional tensions and conflicts.
“I call on them to focus on strengthening Lebanese national institutions and to meet the aspirations of the Lebanese people by implementing inevitable economic reforms that cannot be postponed.”
“Egypt will harness its potentials to help the Lebanese people reconstruct affected areas. Thus, engineers and technicians in the fields of infrastructure rehabilitation and power station repair should be sent to Lebanon,” Sisi said.
The president also referred to the efforts made by Egypt since the Beirut port explosion last year, noting that it provided strategic goods and support for the Lebanese state to rehabilitate the buildings damaged by the explosion, the latest of which was the arrival of an Egyptian warship to Beirut last month carrying more than 300 tonnes of needs. This, he also said, adds to the efforts of the Egyptian field hospital in Beirut, which provides daily medical services, and quantities of drugs and medicines to treat the Corona virus patients, Radi said.
The president stressed that the economic problem in Lebanon is closely related to the political crisis that has continued since 2019 and is getting more and more complex day by day in light of the continuing vacuum in the government, calling into Lebanese people to work to end this crisis and prevent their country from slipping into a dark tunnel, in which there is no winner, Ambassador Radi said.
President Sisi mentioned how the exceptional and difficult circumstances facing the world as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have placed heavy burdens on many countries, particularly those that were encountering major economic challenges in the first place, including brotherly Lebanon.
He added that the provision of international support to the Lebanese people is inevitable and urgent.
