President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will now allow U.S. airliners to conduct direct flights to Lebanon, more than four decades after the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited those routes.
Trump hinted at the announcement during a bilateral meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House on Tuesday morning, telling reporters he could “see that happening.”
Hours later, the president wrote on Truth Social that Aoun “has done a remarkable job working to transform his country.”
“I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” he continued. “Hopefully, other Countries will do the same. Enjoy!”
The FAA barred commercial flights to Lebanon after the 1985 hijacking of Trans World Airlines Flight 847, a flight from Cairo with a final destination of San Diego.
The hijackers, over a period of more than two weeks, crisscrossed the Mediterranean Sea while demanding the release of more than 700 Lebanese people in Israeli custody. During one of the flights across the Atlantic, the hijackers killed one of the passengers, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, and deposited his body on the tarmac of the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport in Lebanon.
The hijackers were believed to have been affiliated with Hezbollah, an Iranian-funded proxy operating out of southern Lebanon, though the group has denied its involvement.
Hezbollah and its attacks on Israel remain near the center of Trump’s war with Iran and the general conflict in the Middle East.
TRUMP SAYS HE’LL SPEAK TO HEZBOLLAH IF ASKED BY LEBANESE PRESIDENT
Trump has repeatedly broken the decadeslong norm preventing presidents from negotiating with U.S.-designated terrorist groups, and he suggested Tuesday that he would consider speaking to Hezbollah leadership directly if asked to do so by Aoun.
“I speak to everybody. I’ll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t be speaking to, and things work out,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.