00:00My guest today on Euronews is the minister, the Lebanese minister of economy and trade,
00:05Hamer Basad. Minister, thanks for being with us. So we'll move to the economy in a minute,
00:10but I cannot help but ask you about the ongoing negotiations. So today marks the first day with
00:18direct talks between Lebanon and Israel in more than 30 years. Both sides are coming to the table
00:24with very different agendas. The Israelis want Hezbollah to be disarmed and they want to cling,
00:31eventually to cling a peace that will last for generations. What is your side expecting from
00:37these talks? The number one objective at this stage is the end of hostilities and the cessation of the
00:46violence. Lebanon has paid an extremely high price and continues to pay an extremely high price both
00:52in terms of death, injured, as well as massive displacement. We're very open to negotiations,
00:59very open to discussions. The government has become very clear about the idea of wanting to have and
01:07establish good relations with all of its neighbors based on sovereignty. But at this point, the
01:12objective, the priority is to end the violence and end the war. And this is what our negotiators will
01:17be asking for today. Okay. So because of the time difference in Washington, the negotiations have
01:22not started yet, they will in a few hours. Is that it? Exactly. Exactly. Thanks for clarifying.
01:28But let's address the big elephant in the room. Hezbollah, namely, which to our viewers is not only an
01:36armed group backed by Iran, but is also a political party. You have two ministers, if I'm not mistaken,
01:42in a new cabinet that come from Hezbollah. The head, the speaker of the parliament rather is from
01:48Hezbollah. He's not. He's not. He's an ally. He's close to Hezbollah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So
01:56Nabi Bedi is close to Hezbollah. You have member of parliament that are close or affiliated with
02:01Hezbollah. So Hezbollah does not want these talks. And Hezbollah is, whether one likes it or not,
02:08part of Lebanon and Lebanese politics. So how do you reconcile the fact that, you know, one of the
02:14allies, political allies, doesn't want those talks? And you want this talk to happen?
02:21Absolutely. So, listen, at the end of the day, there's both a political, by now a legal, and
02:28certainly, I would think, a collective national consensus for what we would call is the return
02:35of the sovereignty of the state. The sovereignty of the state includes, among other things,
02:40and perhaps the most important is this idea that we want a monopoly over the decision of war and peace.
02:46No entity in Lebanon, no group in Lebanon has the right to decide when we get into a war and
02:53when
02:53we get into a peace. No entity has a right at this point, you know, to control arms. Only the
02:59state,
03:00only the sovereign state has the capability and ability. And this position, the one I just
03:06articulated, this idea of a sovereignty is no longer a just decision by the minority. It's the vast
03:12majority of the Lebanese population won that. And they've articulated that over and over again,
03:17not recently, since the early 90s. Anybody who knows the Lebanese history knows that the end of
03:22the civil war was predicated during this period where we call the Taif Accord. There was predicated
03:28on the idea that the state gets back its sovereignty. That position got re-articulated and re-emphasized
03:36re-stressed with the new president who came into power in 24. With the new cabinet, the vast majority
03:43of the cabinet was very clear, we want the sovereignty of the state. This was repeated again
03:49through multiple decisions. The idea being here, there's a collective decision by the whole society
03:54for taking over and being a sovereign, taking over arms, control over arms, taking over the decision
04:01of war and peace. I understand that. But beyond statements, and beyond the fact that I would,
04:07you know, repeat what you just said, the vast majority of the population wants peace and security,
04:12you have Hezbollah, who does not want to disarm. So how do you manage this? Because any agreement
04:20with Israel is conditional on Hezbollah disarming, and so was the ceasefire in 2024.
04:27Absolutely. We've been, I mean, you sort of articulated it as a statement. It's actually
04:34more than a statement. It's a position that is political, that has a full force of the
04:38Lebanese government's willingness, desire, and recently actions, incidentally. I want to
04:43emphasize actions in term, including the decision in last week of calling Beirut, administrative
04:49Beirut as a city empty of arms. The army, the security forces are already implementing it,
04:56right? I want to emphasize this point one more time. This goes beyond a political statement. This
05:01is a national decision that is articulated in politics and in actions to two things.
05:09Wanting the end of hostility and the liberation of the South, and the end of hostility by Israel,
05:15this is extremely important. We want our people, we want the 1.4 million people to go back to their
05:20lands, to their homes. We want to end, we're calling for the end of violence and hostility,
05:25but at the same time, the regaining of sovereignty over all decisions that in the last 20 years have
05:32been robbed by the, robbed, and we need to take back control. Can we do that? I would claim we
05:41want to.
05:41We started. This effort is not recent. As I was saying, this effort started 15 months,
05:4718 months ago. The army did take this sort of controlled South. The army has a plan. The
05:54government is articulating this plan, wants to do it. Is it easy? Of course not. I'm not naive.
05:59Nobody's saying it's going to be automatic or a magic wand.
06:02But if I may, beyond being easy or not, and I understand it's not easy, because you would have
06:06done it a long time ago. If Hezbollah refuses to cooperate, refuses to lay down its arms,
06:13how can you force them?
06:14We count on, and this is honestly, this is more than just a statement. We're counting on the
06:22national consensus at this point that nobody wants violence internally. And we believe strongly that
06:29through discussions and negotiations, working with all Lebanese of all sects and all religions,
06:38under the premise that I just mentioned, the two-legged premise of sovereignty of the state
06:44and liberation of the South, and the hostilities, but at the same time, complete control over the
06:51decisions and taking over the arms. We think if we propose it that way, if the proposal is that way,
06:57it's articulated as a position of complete sovereignty, both in terms of liberating the
07:05South, but also in terms of regaining sovereignty. We think the population, the society, including,
07:10and here I'm going to be a little bit more open and honest, what we refer to as the Shia
07:16community, which we believe that they are partners. We are all in the same boat at this stage. And
07:24I think if we present it that way, there will be a consensus eventually on this.
07:28Okay. I want to come back very briefly before we move to the economy, to a point you made about
07:33regaining sovereignty over Lebanon's full territory. It goes opposite to what Prime Minister Netanyahu has
07:41said, and even more contrary to what some of his ministers have said, but going back to Netanyahu,
07:48he's made very clear that Israel would have a buffer zone in South Lebanon. And some of these
07:53ministers sitting in his very government have said they wanted to annex Southern Lebanon. So is it
07:59something you're going to talk about during the negotiations? Do you think it can be negotiated?
08:03I mean, as I was saying there, the principle of complete sovereignty over all Lebanon, the return of
08:09our displays, the 1.4 million displays, the beginning of the reconstruction is a crucial
08:18part of the way we would think of our politics and the proposition. It's going to have to be part
08:24of the negotiations. Obviously, it's part of the negotiations. We're not talking at this point to...
08:29This is why there's a need for peace negotiations, for discussions. I'm not going to speak for the
08:34Israelis. I'm speaking about what we believe. And we believe regain of the sovereignty,
08:38liberation of the South, bringing back our displaced, in parallel to regaining sovereignty
08:46and controlling arms, is the approach that we would want to follow.
08:50Okay. You're hoping it's going to work?
08:54I'm... Listen, as... Listen, I genuinely believe that the Lebanese want peace. I genuinely believe
09:01the Lebanese want prosperity. They want stability, all of them. Not 80%, not 75%.
09:06100%. Absolutely. And I don't want to speak for them, but I think we're all at the position right
09:11now where we are tired of wars. We are tired of instability. We're tired of violence. The last
09:16three months, the last six weeks have been traumatic in a way that I'm sure we're going to be talking
09:21about economically, socially, humanity. We all want this to end. And I'm hoping that sane minds will
09:27prevail. And if we present it that way, eventually we can reach a conclusion, a positive conclusion.
09:32So let's talk about the economy. The Lebanese economy was in tatters, according to the World
09:37Bank and other international observers, before the war. Now we know there is more than one million
09:42people displaced. We know there are many casualties over 2000. We know that airstrikes, Israeli airstrikes,
09:49namely, have destroyed a good chunk of the south of Lebanon. How do you foresee the reconstruction of
09:54Lebanon? And are you counting on some international help?
09:59I mean, the point to make is, and I'm going to repeat the point to you, May, which is that
10:02it's
10:02been a devastating, devastating six weeks on top of an economy that had barely started to recover in
10:0925 after years of crisis, another war. Obviously, for people who know, we had a massive financial
10:15crisis. We had a huge explosion in the port, right? And now we have this absolutely devastating hit,
10:21right? The destruction, the physical destruction, we don't know yet. We're starting to do some surveys,
10:26geo-satellite surveys, the radical field. But it seems to be at least as big, if not even larger
10:31and bigger than what we saw in 2024. And 2024 was already a very big destruction, right? It was $8
10:37billion, $7 billion worth of destruction. Now it seems at least as big. We also have massive economic
10:43losses, right? I mean, a huge chunk of the society is no longer working. Companies are closing, tourists
10:50are not coming, remittances are not flowing. It's absolutely devastating. And I have to say,
10:55I mean, listen, I mean, the Lebanese are resilient. I hate that word, but it is the truth. We're
11:00resilient. We're used to. We go through these things. It's painful that we have to go through
11:04them yet again. But we'll figure out a way to come out of the rubble, right? Two approaches.
11:12One approach is we're going to rely on ourselves. The Lebanese are still successful. There's a huge
11:17diaspora. We have a decent amount of savings. We could use that eventually. If peace comes back,
11:23if stability comes back, we will fund a lot of it. But in the interim, we need a bridge. There's
11:28no question about it. We need foreign funding to help us over the short term, right? And this is why,
11:33I mean, I'm in Washington right now, the IMF meetings. And that's the main reason why we're
11:37here is to have a conversation with our partners to try to see how they can help us. The point
11:43I'm
11:43making, absolutely devastating. I think the Lebanese have it. They have what it takes to rebuild it if
11:48peace comes. But in the interim, we absolutely need our partners to help us.
11:54So economic packages are being talked about as these negotiations are happening in parallel?
11:59We are discussing absolutely two tracks. There is the humanitarian track,
12:04quite important. The cost of, again, 1.4 million displaced is almost 20% of our population. It's a
12:11huge number. It's a mind-boggling number, right? All in six weeks. The cost is enormous of just keeping
12:17them, feeding them, sleeping, sort of sleep. The water, the health is an enormous bill. But then
12:24there's also the long-term effort, right, which we already need to start thinking about the day after
12:30reconstruction, rebuilding this economy and build it better, hopefully. So we're working on both of
12:36these fronts. I mean, humanitarian, short-term, but also long-term support, eventually.
12:41Are you seeing any role for Europe in helping Lebanon recover from this crisis?
12:46Crucial role. Actually, I would say primary role, right? And the Europeans have sort of been incredibly
12:53supportive, both politically, but even recently economically. We do see them as our partners. I mean,
13:00at the end of the day, the Arab, our Arab brothers and sisters will also be an important, a very
13:06important part of any effort to help us. But the Europeans have been politically, socially, but also
13:14economically very supportive. And for that, I absolutely thank them. And I'm extremely sort of thankful
13:20for that support. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Just one last question very quickly for me, for
13:25background. How many days of negotiations are we looking at in Washington? Is there a set number of
13:30days already? No, I don't think it's a preset. As people have said over, this is the introduction.
13:38This is the beginning. This is more of a laying the groundwork. Eventually, it's probably going
13:42to have to be a larger group and a more, in a lengthier period. But this is the beginning. And
13:47again, our demand, our ask is this point is end of hostilities. Yeah. But in the meantime,
13:52there is no ceasefire applying to Lebanon. That's a fact. There were airstrikes today again.
13:56The violence is continuing in the south very, very clearly. Thankfully, Beirut seems to have
14:01been spared over the past few days. But no, but absolutely, the attacks continue.
14:05Okay. Thank you, Minister, for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. Thank you.
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