President Trump said he was ordering his administration to allow direct flights from the United States to Lebanon, ending a ban that has been in place since Hezbollah hijacked a flight in 1985.
The surprise announcement, which Trump made on his social media platform after visiting President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon, comes as the war with Iran escalates. It ends a restriction imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration that prohibited U.S. carriers from flying directly to Lebanon after Hezbollah hijacked TWA Flight 847, starting a 17-day standoff in which a U.S. Navy sailor was killed.
“I hereby direct my Administration to allow all US airlines to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump wrote in a post that did not mention the reason for the initial ban. “Hopefully other countries will do the same.”
It was not immediately clear when the Trump administration would formally repeal the ban, or whether U.S. airlines would take advantage of the policy change to schedule flights to Beirut.
The FAA said in a statement that it “looks forward to working with airlines and our interagency partners to advance the president’s directive and support the safe return of flights to Lebanon.”
Trump’s decision potentially increases the American footprint in Beirut amid an uncertain security situation. Lebanese and Israeli leaders are working under a US-brokered framework to negotiate a withdrawal of Israeli troops from occupied areas as part of a campaign against Hezbollah that Israel waged in parallel with the war in Iran. The US State Department said on Monday that disengagement operations had begun in three “pilot areas”, although on Tuesday both sides acknowledged that Israel had resumed firing.
Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia that has long operated as a de facto government inside Lebanon, has rejected the US-backed peace process, which would involve its disarmament.
US efforts to end hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, which have oscillated between states of frozen conflict and all-out war for nearly 80 years, are currently at odds with Trump’s tougher outlook toward Iran, where peace talks have broken down and regular bombing has resumed. But the two spheres of the conflict remain linked, given Iran and Hezbollah’s ties, and the influence the militant group wields in Lebanon’s internal affairs.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would “talk to Hezbollah” to help advance a resolution to the conflict, particularly if Aoun requested it.
“I’ll talk to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t talk to and things will work out,” he added.
