{France said on Wednesday that a $3 billion contract to provide weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese army with Saudi Arabian financing could now go ahead after all sides had agreed on the deal.}<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the work is done,\u201d Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament. He added that President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande had confirmed the conclusion of the deal to Lebanon\u2019s former prime minister Saad Hariri at a meeting on Tuesday. \u201cThe President told Mr Hariri yesterday that the conditions to fulfil the contract had been met.\u201d<\/p>\n
Analysts regard overhauling the Lebanese army\u2019s equipment as crucial for the stability of the country, as conflict in Syria and Iraq threatens to spill over its border.<\/p>\n
The tripartite arms procurement plan was agreed in principle last December, but differences over the details have delayed it, meaning it could not be signed during a visit by Saudi Defence Minister and Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud last month.<\/p>\n
Following his meeting with Hollande on Tuesday, Hariri had said he was confident the deal was nearly concluded and expected developments \u201cwithin days\u201d.<\/p>\n
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{France said on Wednesday that a $3 billion contract to provide weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese army with Saudi Arabian financing could now go ahead after all sides had agreed on the deal.} \u201cAll the work is done,\u201d Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament. He added that President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande had confirmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000054431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-16794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000054431,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16794.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000054431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16794"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=16794"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=16794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}