<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will undertake a new tour of the Middle East this week, which will include Lebanon, where General Joseph Aoun has just been named president of the country after more than two years without a head of state, and Syria, just a month after the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime and where he will preside over the raising of the flag at the Spanish Embassy, which has remained lowered since the ambassador left in 2012.</strong></h4> As reported last week by the Ministry in a press release, Albares will begin his tour on Wednesday in Beirut, where he plans to hold high-level political meetings to address the situation in the country. The Spanish Government welcomed last Thursday the decision of the Lebanese Parliament to elect General Joseph Aoun to the post of President of the Lebanese Republic and expressed its desire to “continue working closely with the Lebanese authorities in favour of peace, sovereignty and stability in Lebanon and the entire region”. The EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, also congratulated Joseph Aoun on his election as President and stated that “this important step marks a moment of hope and renewal for the Lebanese people”. In Beirut, the minister will discuss the bilateral relationship and Spain's contribution to Lebanon through Spanish Cooperation. In addition, Albares, who already visited Lebanon last year at this time, plans to meet with the United Nations Special Coordinator, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the Special Humanitarian Coordinator, Imran Riza, to discuss the humanitarian situation in the region. The minister's agenda also includes a meeting with Spanish General Aroldo Lázaro, Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and with the new President (and head of the Lebanese Armed Forces), General Joseph Aoun, with whom he will assess compliance with the ceasefire agreement reached on 27 November (about to expire the 60-day period set by the agreement), Spain's support for the redeployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces in the south of the country and the role of UNIFIL in this new phase. Spain's participation in UNIFIL began in September 2006, as part of Operation 'Libre Hidalgo', deploying its military in southern Lebanon with the aim of contributing to the implementation of United Nations Resolution 1701. The Spanish deployment has focused on patrolling and monitoring the separation line between Israel and Lebanon, in coordination with the Lebanese Armed Forces. The Spanish contingent in UNIFIL is currently one of the largest, with 669 soldiers assigned to various tasks within the mission. In addition to patrols, Spanish troops are present at the mission's command posts in Naqura, where the force's headquarters are located. Since 2022, Spanish Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro has been in command of the international contingent, in which more than 10,500 blue helmets from 40 countries are deployed. <h5><strong>Syria</strong></h5> The following day, the Spanish minister is scheduled to travel to Damascus, on his first visit to the country, five weeks after the fall of the Bashar Al Assad regime. In this country, the Foreign Minister is scheduled to meet with leaders of the country's ethnic and religious minorities and with women from civil society, as well as with humanitarian organisations that carry out their work on the ground. He will also visit the Sednaya prison, in memory of the victims of the repression of the Al Assad regime. Albares will take advantage of his trip to pay tribute to the work of the staff of the Spanish Embassy in Syria with a personal meeting and a visit to the facilities, where he will preside over the raising of the flag. The flag was lowered with the departure of the ambassador in 2012 and has not been raised since then. The Embassy was reduced to the bare minimum in 2012 after Spain decided to withdraw its ambassador from Damascus in retaliation for the repressive policy of the Al Assad regime against anti-government protests. Since then, the representation has been headed by a chargé d'affaires based in Beirut. Foreign Ministry sources have stated that, for the moment, the appointment of a new ambassador to Syria is not planned. On December 23, the Council of Ministers appointed the diplomat Antonio González-Zavala as special envoy for Syria, whose mission, as Albares himself announced a week earlier, will be to "transmit clear red lines" to the new authorities that have emerged from the overthrow of the Bashar al Assad regime. Among the “red lines” Albares mentioned “that the future of Syria be a peaceful future, that what is today a military movement become a political movement (in reference to Hayat Tahrir al Sham, HTS, the jihadist armed group that led the overthrow of Al Assad) and that it be an inclusive future with scrupulous respect for ethnic and religious minorities.”
