Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri had not time to receive the US Treasury delegation that visited Beirut last week, Local media reported on Sunday, citing the speaker’s visitors.

“I don’t have time. They can meet with Advisor Ali Hamdan,” Berri said when asked by his visitors about the reason behind his decline to meet the US delegation.

Meanwhile, local media cited Berri’s displeasure over information he had received on a meeting between the US delegation and Lebanese MP Fuad Makhzoumi during which “accusations and threats were leveled against him,” figures who visited the Lebanese speaker said, as cited by local media.

Such accusations and threats were enough for Speaker Berri to decline to meet the US delegation, according to the visitors.

The US Treasury delegation made the visit to Lebanon last week. Media reports mentioned that the US delegation was pressing the Lebanese State on the financial level, under the pretext of “financial reform” or financial sovereignty.”

Last week, Head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Mohammad Raad condemned on Thursday (November 13) the US “attempts to tighten the financial blockade on Lebanon with the aim of preventing reconstruction”, adding that these attempts “fall within the framework of controlling the operation of the Lebanese financial sector.”

In remarks earlier on Tuesday (November 11), MP Raad stressed the international and regional attempts to pressure the resistance and Lebanese officials to achieve the enemy’s conditions are futile.

Source: local media (translated and edited by Al-Manar)