DOHA: Qatar announced on Thursday the granting of $60 million in aid to the Lebanese army, as part of its support for the country devastated by the worst economic crisis in its history.
The wealthy Gulf emirate will grant “an amount of 60 million dollars in support of the Lebanese army”, the Qatari Foreign Ministry announced in a press release, while the head of Qatari diplomacy, Sheikh Mohammad ben Abdel Rahman Al-Thani, is in Beirut to participate in an Arab League meeting.
“We hope that this support will show our commitment to the people and state institutions of Lebanon,” the minister’s adviser, Majid Al-Ansari, told AFP.
“We want him to show the Lebanese people that the Arab world has not forgotten him,” he added. “As a friendly nation, Qatar is leading the way in supporting Lebanon.”
In Beirut, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and army chief Joseph Aoun thanked Qatar for its gesture.
“This new Qatari aid to the Lebanese army (…) will help Lebanon get through this difficult period and preserve its stability,” Mikati said.
A Lebanese military source told AFP that this is the first time that a foreign country has granted financial aid to the Lebanese army to help it pay the salaries of its soldiers, rolled by the depreciation of the currency. national which has lost more than 90% of its value since the start of the crisis in 2019.
The average soldier’s salary today is less than $100, down from $800 before 2019.
In July, Qatar announced in-kind aid of 70 tons of food products to the military institution, hit hard by the economic collapse.
The crisis in Lebanon, one of the worst in the world since 1850 according to the World Bank, has decimated the state budget and the armed forces and plunged the majority of the population into poverty.
Relations between Beirut and the Arab countries of the Gulf have been strained in recent years due to the growing influence of pro-Iranian Hezbollah, a heavyweight in Lebanese politics, accused of supporting the Houthi rebels that the military coalition led by the Saudi has been fighting in Yemen since 2014.
