The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it had allowed the entry into the country of two suitcases carried by an Iranian diplomat on board a plane that landed yesterday in Beirut and that airport authorities wanted to scan.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates received a written explanatory note from the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Lebanon regarding the contents of two small diplomatic bags carried by an Iranian diplomat on board the Mahan Air flight on January 2, 2025. They contain documents and banknotes to pay special operating expenses for the exclusive use of the embassy,” the Lebanese ministry said in a brief statement.
"The two suitcases were therefore allowed to enter in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961," the statement concluded.
Yesterday, Lebanese media reported that an Iranian diplomat refused to have his bags checked, arguing that “diplomatic bags are not checked.”
“Security sources confirmed that the instructions issued by the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dictate that the luggage of all new arrivals must be scanned without exception,” according to Lebanese media outlet LBCI.
Israel has repeatedly accused Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah, of using Beirut airport to transfer money and weapons to the Shiite terrorist organisation, which operates in Lebanon.
In October 2024, the European Union imposed sanctions on Iranian airline Mahan Air for supplying missiles and drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Currently, Israel and Lebanon are maintaining a fragile truce that ends at the end of this month, in which Israeli troops must withdraw from the areas they have reached in the south of the Mediterranean Arab country, while Hezbollah terrorists must retreat north of the Litani River, far from the dividing line between the two countries.
Agencies contributed to this Aurora article