Tehran hopes Hariri will remain as Lebanon’s PM – adviser

Tehran has said that it hopes Saad al-Hariri will remain as Lebanon’s prime minister and denied that he had resigned after a tense meeting with an adviser to the Iranian supreme leader in Beirut. Hariri resigned abruptly on November 4 while in Saudi Arabia. He had flown to Riyadh the previous day following a meeting in Beirut with Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Hariri claims that in our meeting he asked Iran to stop interfering in Lebanese affairs, but he did not say such a thing,” Reuters quoted Velayati as saying on Tuesday. “Our meeting was not tense or violent at all. These are all lies,” he said. Velayati added that Saudi Arabia “could not tolerate the strategic friendship” between Tehran and Beirut.