Lebanon PM to Asharq Al-Awsat: No Other Path Except Ceasefire, Negotiations

 Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot in Beirut on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot in Beirut on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Lebanon PM to Asharq Al-Awsat: No Other Path Except Ceasefire, Negotiations

 Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot in Beirut on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot in Beirut on September 30, 2024. (AFP)

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati stressed on Monday that his country is committed to a reaching a ceasefire and launching indirect negotiations that would end the fierce Israeli war on Lebanon and its people.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat after meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and later holding talks with parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, he said: “Lebanon vows to send the army to the South after a ceasefire and the launch of negotiations.”

“We have no other substitute to this call that was issued by ten influential countries, led by the United States and France,” he added.

“It is now on the international community. The credibility of these countries, especially the US, is now on the line, because if they can’t stop this barbaric war, then I don’t believe anyone can,” Mikati said.

Moreover, he remarked that his comments after meeting Berri reflect the “unity of the Lebanese position,” saying he used the word “vow” to underscore the strength of this stance.

“This is the only path forward and there can be no substitute for it except the continuation of the war, whose end no one can predict,” he went on to say.



Libya’s Parliament Approves Appointment of Belqasem as New Central Bank Governor

Libyan Ministry of Interior personnel stand guard in front of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Libya, August 27, 2024. (Reuters)
Libyan Ministry of Interior personnel stand guard in front of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Libya, August 27, 2024. (Reuters)
TT

Libya’s Parliament Approves Appointment of Belqasem as New Central Bank Governor

Libyan Ministry of Interior personnel stand guard in front of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Libya, August 27, 2024. (Reuters)
Libyan Ministry of Interior personnel stand guard in front of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Libya, August 27, 2024. (Reuters)

Libya’s eastern parliament on Monday agreed to appoint Naji Mohamed Issa Belqasem as the new central bank governor after the former governor, Sadiq al-Kabir, was fired last month by the presidential council in the capital, Tripoli.

Parliament spokesperson Abdullah Bliheg said Monday that all 108 lawmakers voted in favor of appointing Belqasem, who previously was the central bank’s director of banking and monetary control.

The parliament also appointed Mari Muftah Rahil Barrasi as his deputy. Belqasem and Barrasi are expected to form a new board of directors for the central bank within 10 days.

The decision came as part of a UN-facilitated agreement between the parliament and the High Council of State to appoint new leadership for the country’s central bank.

Last month, the presidential council issued a decree to appoint Mohamed Abdul Salam al-Shukri, the former deputy governor, as a replacement for al-Kabir. The presidential council in Tripoli is allied with Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU).

However, the country’s eastern parliament and the Supreme Council of State, an advisory body based in the capital, said removing al-Kabir was was an illegitimate move and that such a decision should have been made in coordination with both bodies. That is according to interim regulations agreed upon during UN-backed talks that help oversee the unity of the country’s institutions.

Al-Kabir served as the central bank’s governor since October 2011, the year when Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising overthrew the country’s longtime leader, Moammar al-Gadhafi.

During the months that led up to his removal, al-Kabir was criticized by officials from both sides of the North African nation’s political divide over the allocation of Libya’s oil money.