US to allow direct flights to Lebanon after 40-year suspension

The US will allow direct flights to Lebanon, President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday.

It comes over 40 years after the US suspended direct flights between the two countries in 1985, during US President Ronald Reagan's administration, in the wake of the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.

"I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all US airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam hailed Trump's announcement. Salam said it "represents a significant opportunity to enhance travel and connectivity between Lebanon and the United States, and to support the Lebanese economy."

The announcement comes after Trump hosted Lebanese President Michel Aoun at the White House on Tuesday.

During that meeting, Trump told Aoun that Lebanon had "been a very badly treated place and country and we’re going to have it properly treated and treated with the respect it deserves."

"We’re gonna help it a lot," he said, without providing specific details.

Washington has been mediating rare talks between Israel and Lebanon, but has become distracted in recent weeks by the resumption of full-scale hostilities between the US and Iran.

Aoun, who was making the first visit to the US capital by a Lebanese president since 2009, had traveled to Washington, D.C. to appeal for a longer-term, more stable peace in his country, which has been plagued by months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.

Aside from the resumption of direct flights between the US and Lebanon, authorities in Beirut will be hoping that this week's talks in Washington yield an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, where Israel's ground forces have occupied swathes of territory as part of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Trump claimed Israel's military was "in the process of doing that. They’re in the process of redeploying," he said, without elaborating.

Israel is occupying southern Lebanon in what it says is an effort to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah attacks. Israel, along with the US, Germany and some other countries, recognize Hezbollah as a terror group.

Aoun, for his part, heaped praise on Trump, whom he called a "great president" whose "vision is peace."

"I do agree with that," Trump jokingly replied, calling Aoun handsome and someone who "knows how to get to me."

"Now he can have anything," Trump added.