2023-05-02 05:01:50
The United States stressed the need for the Lebanese parliament to elect a new president for the country, six months following the vacancy of the position in that small Arab country that suffers from stifling economic and political crises.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday in a statement Official Website Under the title “The Situation in Lebanon,” the ministry said, “The United States calls on the political leaders in Lebanon to move urgently to elect a president to unify the country and to adopt urgently required reforms to save the economy from its crisis.”
The statement emphasized that Lebanon’s leaders “must not place their personal interests and aspirations above the interests of their country and people.”
A caretaker government with limited powers has been running the country since May last year, following parliamentary elections that did not produce a clear majority for any party, according to Agence France-Presse.
Since the end of President Michel Aoun’s term at the end of last October, the Lebanese parliament has failed 11 times to elect a successor due to deep political divisions.
Hezbollah, which enjoys dominance over political life in Lebanon, announced its support with some of its allies for the accession of former deputy and minister Suleiman Franjieh, who is close to the Syrian regime, to the presidency in Lebanon, amid great rejection by the two largest Christian parties in the country, namely the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces Party.
The leader of the Hezbollah militia, Hassan Nasrallah, had said in November that he wanted any chosen president to be “not subject to the United States” and “reassuring the resistance,” while his deputies were voting with white papers during the president’s election sessions.
Last week, during his visit to Lebanon, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian called for “accelerating the election of a president and completing the political process in this important country in the region.”
Representatives of five countries concerned with Lebanese affairs, including France, the United States and Saudi Arabia, held a meeting in Paris in February to discuss the situation in Lebanon, without achieving any progress.
In the statement, Miller expressed, “The United States believes that Lebanon needs a president who is free from corruption and capable of uniting the country … and implementing basic economic reforms, on top of which are those required to secure an agreement on a program with the International Monetary Fund.”
Miller stressed in the statement that “solutions to Lebanon’s political and economic crises can only come from within Lebanon and not through the international community.”
Lebanon is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the financial collapse in 2019, in light of a deep political impasse.
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