Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun is today in Syria to celebrate Saint Maroun’s Day and to inaugurate a church in the Syrian Brad village north of Aleppo .
FPM MP Alain Aoun said the visit will help improve Lebanese-Syrian relations
He described the FPM leader’s trip as important and symbolic
The Maronite patriarch said last week that he rejected any potential visit to Syria if not backed by his community.
This year’s Saint Maroun holiday falls on the 1,600th anniversary of the death of the founder of the Maronite church. Maroun flourished as a hermit in Brad, before moving with his followers to Lebanon. He is buried in the village.
Alain Aoun touched on last month’s Ethiopian airliner flight ET409 crash, saying that simple calculations would have immediately determined the location of the fuselage. He called for forming a separate parliamentary committee to investigate the technical teams’ shortcomings in dealing with the incident.