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Ending 2-yr impasse, Lebanon Parliament picks army chief Aoun as President

The session was the legislature's 13th attempt to elect a successor to former President Michel Aoun - no relation to the army commander - whose term ended in October 2022

Lebanon flag

The vote came weeks after a tenuous ceasefire agreement halted a 14-month conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

AP Beirut

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Lebanon's parliament voted Thursday to elect the country's army commander, Joseph Aoun, as head of state, filling a more than two-year-long presidential vacuum.

The session was the legislature's 13th attempt to elect a successor to former President Michel Aoun - no relation to the army commander - whose term ended in October 2022.

The vote came weeks after a tenuous ceasefire agreement halted a 14-month conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and at a time when Lebanon's leaders are seeking international assistance for reconstruction.

Aoun was widely seen as the preferred candidate of the United States and Saudi Arabia, whose assistance Lebanon will need to ensure that Israel withdraws its forces from southern Lebanon as stipulated in the agreement and to fund the post-war rebuilding.

 

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Jan 09 2025 | 9:41 PM IST

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