Seoul: President Michel Aoun and a high-ranking delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital on Monday, the first leg of a trip that will also include a stop in Amman, Jordan.

President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi welcomed his Lebanese counterpart although Aoun to coordinate, if possible, the two countries’ policies. The trip was important as this is the head-of-state’s third official state visit after he travelled to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where he breached the regional situation with King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad. As with these earlier contacts, Aoun wished to coordinate with Al Sissi on how best to address the ongoing fight against extremism although all of his interlocutors concentrated on Hezbollah and its role in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, among other hot spots.

Partly to address Al Sissi’s concerns, Aoun told the Egyptian television channel CBC on Sunday that “as long as Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory, envies the small country’s natural resources (water and oil), and as long as the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) do not have the required capabilities to face Israel, he feels that the weapons in the hands of Hezbollah are necessary.”

This was a bold statement and though the CBC interview provided Aoun a platform to discuss the importance of President Bashar Al Assad in holding Syria together, his focus was mainly on Hezbollah’s presence in the neighboring country, which he perceived as a positive development.

The President of the Republic responded to a particularly strong question about Hezbollah’s military deployments on various Syrian battlefields as valuable additions to regional instability. He pointed out that the Shiite militia intervened in the fighting in Syria only when Lebanon was confronted with the terrorist threat. He specifically identified infiltrations in Arsal and Wadi Khalid, along the border, as the necessary rationale, adding: “Hezbollah’s presence in Syria is directed against terrorist organizations on the ground like Daech and the Al Nusrah Front”, though his assertion that the party does not interfere “in the regional struggle” was not accurate. In fact, such interferences prompted the Gulf Cooperation Council states to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

Cairo also designated Hezbollah a terrorist organisation in the aftermath of the April 2009 Hezbollah plot in Egypt that involved the arrest of 49 men by Egyptian authorities. At the time, Egypt accused those detained as being Hezbollah agents planning attacks against Israeli and Egyptian targets throughout the Sinai Peninsula. In response to the arrests, Hassan Nasrallah accused Cairo of mistreating the Palestinians after the 2008 War in Gaza. He lamented the closing of the Rafah crossing that, the Chairman of the Party said, made Egypt a “partner in the killing of Palestinians by the Israeli Defense Forces”, a declaration that angered Cairo.

As part of another interview on Sunday, this time with Al Ahram, President Aoun defended Hezbollah, noting first that the Shiite militia was targeted by the UN resolution 1559 for various reasons, but chiefly “because of its opposition to Israel”. He added that the agreement with Hezbollah allowed him to no longer merely be confined to a specific community and become “national resistance” which raised eyebrows among many Lebanese who did not accept this interpretation.

It was unclear whether the President was sharing his personal views or revealing a new State policy, especially when he underscored that the LAF and Hezbollah complemented each other and that the party’s strength did not weaken the State.

Asked whether during his visit to Saudi Arabia the issue of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization was raised by King Salman, Aoun replied that this issue had not been addressed because Hezbollah members were Lebbanese citizens who inhabited the South and are not mercenaries like those who came from other countries fighting in Syria”.

Aoun and his delegation, which includes the Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gebran Bassil, the Minister of the Interior Nouhad Al Mashnouq, the Minister of the Economy Raed Khoury, and the State Minister for Presidential Affairs Pierre Raffoul, will meet with their counterparts for in-depth exchanges though Baabda Palace did not issue a formal agenda. Observers noted that the head of General Security, Major General Abbas Ebrahim, accompanied the president too, which hinted that counter-terrorism measures were probably high on the list of items that leaders of the two countries were bound to address.

On Tuesday, Aoun was scheduled to fly to Amman, at the invitation of Jordanian King Abdullah II.