The Lebanese Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Gebran Bassil, said after his visit to Bkirki to meet with Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi “we are not in a race of initiatives, so we do not link the cabinet formation with any other entitlement.”

“I have presented five new ideas, and contacts are underway away from the media. We are waiting for answers, but I am hopeful for a positive outcome,” said the minister.

“These ideas and solutions cannot be all rejected,” he said.

“Lebanon is on the verge of an Arab economic summit and we must seek to form a government. It is not normal to pay the price of war and then the price of reconstruction. We must be partners in reconstruction as we were partners in the victory over terrorism,” The minister stressed.

“Linking the formation of the government to the presidential entitlement is a shameful claim. How could we derail the ideas we are submitting?” Bassil wondered.

This is not the best or appropriate timing to discuss a change in the system,” he went on to say.

Asked about the refusal to give the president and the bloc the guarantor third, Bassil said: “Hezbollah has expressed its opinion directly in the words of Sayyed Nasrallah, and has repeated it more than once. The formulas approved by the party confirm no problem on this subject.”

“If this covenant fails, do you think there will ever be a presidency worthy for us? The covenant is the president, the institutions and the whole State. Who would push his own self towards failure?” he asked.

Source: NNA