BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met in Beirut on Wednesday and backed placing all weapons under Lebanese state control, as they discussed efforts to disarm armed groups in Palestinian refugee camps.

A joint statement from the Lebanese presidency said the two leaders shared the "belief that the era of weapons outside Lebanese state control has ended" and backed the principle that arms should be held exclusively by the state. Abbas's three-day trip is his first to Lebanon since 2017. The country hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA, many living in overcrowded camps beyond state control.

A Lebanese government source said Abbas's visit aimed to set up a mechanism to remove weapons from the camps. The source requested anonymity as they were not allowed to brief the media. The statement said the two sides agreed "to form a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee to follow up on the situation of Palestinian camps in Lebanon and work on improving the living conditions of refugees, while respecting Lebanese sovereignty and committing to Lebanese laws".

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps, where Abbas's Fatah, its rival Hamas and other armed groups handle security. "The monopoly of weapons should be in the hands of the state," Aoun said in an interview with Egyptian channel ON TV on Sunday. The army, he added, had dismantled six Palestinian military training camps — three in Bekaa, one south of Beirut and two in the north — and seized weapons. The army has also been dismantling militant group Hezbollah's infrastructure in the country's south.

'A new era'

Ahmad Majdalani, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official accompanying Abbas, said the visit came as Lebanon entered "a new era" in which it is receiving "Arab and American support". "What matters to us in this new regional context is that we do not become part of Lebanon's internal conflicts," he said, "and that the Palestinian cause is not exploited to serve any party."

Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, said he hoped Abbas’s talks would take a broader approach than just weapons and security. "We affirm our respect for Lebanon's sovereignty, security and stability, and at the same time we demand the provision of civil and human rights for our Palestinian people in Lebanon," he said.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are mostly descendants of those who were expelled from their land during the creation of the Zionist entity in 1948. They face a variety of legal restrictions including on employment. — AFP