Lebanon: Tammam Salam Refuses to Head Govt Under Current President

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam speaks during an interview with Reuters in his office in Beirut November 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam speaks during an interview with Reuters in his office in Beirut November 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
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Lebanon: Tammam Salam Refuses to Head Govt Under Current President

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam speaks during an interview with Reuters in his office in Beirut November 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam speaks during an interview with Reuters in his office in Beirut November 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

Former Prime Minister Tammam Salam said that he refused to deal with the current President, because there was no way to reach an understanding with him, nor with the mentality and method he followed since the start of his tenure.

Salam’s visitors quoted the former premier as saying that President Michel Aoun has been arrogant in his dealings with the current crisis, instead of showing his readiness to conduct a critical review of the policies that were behind the deterioration of the situation in Lebanon.

The current presidency has brought the country to a dead end because it denied all the faults and mistakes committed throughout the four years of the presidential term and which led to the current crises, Salam was quoted as saying.

Commenting on reports on his nomination to head the new government, the former premier asked: “How is it possible to cooperate with this tenure, which continues to create rules that violate the constitution and weakens the Taif Agreement…?”

Salam told his visitors: “Today, in these difficult circumstances, we are in dire need for the presence of a rational, fair, and just president, who gathers the Lebanese around him and unites them instead of separating them.”

Lebanon’s former prime ministers held a private meeting on Friday to discuss the latest developments and Aoun’s invitation for the binding parliamentary consultations on Monday.



Israeli Strikes Cause Damage to Bridges in Syria’s Homs Province, State Media Says

A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Cause Damage to Bridges in Syria’s Homs Province, State Media Says

A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)

Syrian state media reported damage to several bridges in the Qusayr countryside of Homs province, attributing it to an Israeli attack on Monday.

Earlier, blasts were heard in and around Qusayr, a town in the southern Homs province, and authorities had said they were investigating the cause.

The Israeli military earlier on Monday confirmed a series of strikes targeting what they said were Iranian weapons smuggling routes through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, adding that the operations disrupted efforts to transfer arms via Syrian territory.