Lebanese President Michel Aoun voiced hope on Wednesday that Lebanon will overcome its crisis, stressing that the new government is for all Lebanese people.

In his Christmas message, President Aoun hoped that the new government will be formed in the new year.

Meanwhile, he hit back at caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri who slammed caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

Bassil is not responsible for forming the government but he had the right to participate in its composition as he is the “leader of the largest bloc,” President Aoun was quoted as saying by Lebanese media.

“The new government will be a government of specialists, not a techno-political one,” he said ahead of a Christmas Day mass at the seat of the Maronite Church in Bkirki.

Hariri, earlier on Tuesday, Hariri launched his harshest criticism yet of Bassil, saying that the next government will be his (Bassil’s) government, saying he would not work again with the Free Patriotic Movement leader unless he abandons his “sectarian and racist” rhetoric.

Source: Lebanese media