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Lebanon PM: New gov't to be formed in 'near future'

July 28, 2021 at 2:10 pm

Prime Minister Najib Mikati speaks to press after his meeting with Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace in Beirut, Lebanon on July 26, 2021 [Lebanese Presidency/Anadolu Agency]

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati today said that he hoped to form a government in the “near future”, Reuters reports.

Mikati, a businessman, is the third person to be nominated since Hassan Diab’s government resigned after an explosion in Beirut’s port area on Aug. 4 last year that killed more than 200 people and flattened large areas of the city. He spoke to reporters after meeting President Michel Aoun.

Diab’s government has stayed on in a caretaker capacity since then, but Lebanon’s currency has collapsed, jobs have vanished and banks have frozen accounts in the country’s worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.

Mikati has held consultations with political parties that he said “unanimously” agreed on the need to put together a government quickly to rescue the crisis-hit country.

READ: Lebanon’s Hariri wants immunity lifted from officials to investigate port blast