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Lebanon: Aoun Says Govt Formation Must Not Be Delayed by Sectarian Demands

This handout picture provided by the press office of the Lebanese presidency shows Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun (L) meeting with prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Lebanese Presidency / AFP)
This handout picture provided by the press office of the Lebanese presidency shows Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun (L) meeting with prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Lebanese Presidency / AFP)
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Lebanon: Aoun Says Govt Formation Must Not Be Delayed by Sectarian Demands

This handout picture provided by the press office of the Lebanese presidency shows Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun (L) meeting with prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Lebanese Presidency / AFP)
This handout picture provided by the press office of the Lebanese presidency shows Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun (L) meeting with prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Lebanese Presidency / AFP)

Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun said on Thursday that the formation of the government must not be delayed because of sectarian and political complexities, urging the parliamentary blocs to ease the formation process.
“We have just begun restoring the trust between the people and the state. We wish to form a new government that meets the aspirations of the people as quickly as possible”, said Aoun on Wednesday.
He added that extending bridges of trust with the Arab and Western worlds is attainable only if sincere intentions for the good of public interest are there.
Aoun emphasized that the swift formation of a new government gives a positive signal to the whole world, while obstructions and delaying the process because of narrow political and sectarian demands does the opposite.
Lawmakers from the Change Bloc, who had a major role in unifying the ranks of the opposition and garner support for naming Judge Nawaf Salam for the premiership, reject demands for sectarian and partisan quotas to ease the formation process.
They say that the mechanism to form a government should strictly adhere to competency.
Recent reports emerged lately that lawmakers of the Change Bloc want to have two or three ministerial seats in the new lineup, but the MPs themselves denied that.
“We don’t want a ministerial share, plus we reject the notion of quotas. We only take the share we want when we rebuild a country that we aspire for, and when competent and ethical ministers are appointed”, MP Paula Yacoubian of the Change Bloc told Asharq al-Awsat.
MP Firas Hamdan, also of the Change Bloc, reiterated what Yacoubian said. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Change lawmakers do not want ministerial portfolios or any share in the coming government.
He said the bloc refuses the formation of a government based on sectarian and political quotas, akin to old formation practices. “These have proven to be failed practices”, he said.
In order to swiftly form a government and garner confidence for Salam’s government, Hamdan said that the political blocs must bear responsibility in front of the people and the international community and ease the formation.
Director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, Dr. Sami Nader, said in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat that lawmakers of the Change Bloc had a major role in bringing Salam to his post.
“But the question is: will the new regime be one that will bring change, or will it replicate the former rule? If the next scenario is the case, then we can treat the Change Bloc as we treat any other party or political group that gets appeased with ministerial representation. This would be regretful because it would only mean that we went back to the system of quotas”, he stated.

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Arab World

More Than Half of Sudan Needs Humanitarian Aid, Says NGO Chief

FILE PHOTO: Displaced Sudanese gather after fleeing El-Fasher city in Darfur, in Tawila, Sudan, October 29, 2025, in this still image taken from a Reuters' video. REUTERS/Mohamed Jamal/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Sudanese gather after fleeing El-Fasher city in Darfur, in Tawila, Sudan, October 29, 2025, in this still image taken from a Reuters' video. REUTERS/Mohamed Jamal/File Photo
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More Than Half of Sudan Needs Humanitarian Aid, Says NGO Chief

FILE PHOTO: Displaced Sudanese gather after fleeing El-Fasher city in Darfur, in Tawila, Sudan, October 29, 2025, in this still image taken from a Reuters' video. REUTERS/Mohamed Jamal/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Sudanese gather after fleeing El-Fasher city in Darfur, in Tawila, Sudan, October 29, 2025, in this still image taken from a Reuters' video. REUTERS/Mohamed Jamal/File Photo

More than half of Sudan's population is in need of humanitarian aid, the head of the Danish Refugee Council told AFP, as fighting ravages the northeast African nation.

Since breaking out in April 2023, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

"We see a situation where more than 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. That is half of the population of Sudan," Danish Refugee Council Secretary General Charlotte Slente told AFP by phone this week after a visit to a border region in neighboring Chad.

"The suffering we see is unimaginable."

Sudan had a population of around 50 million people in 2024, according to the World Bank.

The aid official's comments came after a field visit to an area in Chad that borders Sudan's western Darfur region, which has seen fierce fighting of late.

Violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with the RSF seizing control of the key town of El-Fasher -- the army's last stronghold in Darfur -- after an 18-month siege and reports of atrocities multiplying.

"There are violations that cross all international humanitarian laws," she added.

Slente said the NGO had seen evidence of mass killings and sexual violence in Sudan.

"We see detentions, we see abductions, forced displacement and torture," she said.

She accused the international community of not doing enough.

"Statements have a very limited impact both on the ongoing humanitarian needs on the ground, and they have not been able to stop the violence," she said.

She warned that there were other cities still under siege that were not receiving the same level of attention.

The town of Babanusa, the last army stronghold in West Kordofan state, has been under siege for several months, as have North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid and South Kordofan's Kadugli and Dilling.

"The international community must stop managing the consequences of this conflict and must start preventing the atrocities," said Slente.

Arab World

Iraq Tribal Clashes Kill Eight

Iraq's tribes have once again become one of the most powerful actors in the rural and oil-rich south. (AFP)
Iraq's tribes have once again become one of the most powerful actors in the rural and oil-rich south. (AFP)
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Iraq Tribal Clashes Kill Eight

Iraq's tribes have once again become one of the most powerful actors in the rural and oil-rich south. (AFP)
Iraq's tribes have once again become one of the most powerful actors in the rural and oil-rich south. (AFP)

Tribal clashes over agricultural land in central Iraq have killed eight people and injured another nine, a security official in Wasit province told AFP on Saturday.

The dispute broke out early in the morning in the village of Kheshan between members of a Bedouin tribe, the official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, AFP reported.

"Eight people were killed and another nine injured," the official said, adding they were all involved in the fighting.

Security forces have surrounded the area, though skirmishes have not yet ceased.

Tribal feuds are common in Iraq, a war-scarred country awash with weapons where petty rows can turn into deadly clashes.

Tribes wield significant influence and often operate under their own moral and judicial codes, and they possess huge caches of arms.

Iraq has only recently begun to regain a sense of stability after decades of violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted long-time ruler Saddam Hussein. 

Arab World

UN Security Council Calls for End to Houthi Attacks

Armed tribesmen participate in an anti-Israel gathering mobilizing more fighters, in Sanaa, Yemen, 05 November 2025. (EPA)
Armed tribesmen participate in an anti-Israel gathering mobilizing more fighters, in Sanaa, Yemen, 05 November 2025. (EPA)
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UN Security Council Calls for End to Houthi Attacks

Armed tribesmen participate in an anti-Israel gathering mobilizing more fighters, in Sanaa, Yemen, 05 November 2025. (EPA)
Armed tribesmen participate in an anti-Israel gathering mobilizing more fighters, in Sanaa, Yemen, 05 November 2025. (EPA)

The UN Security Council on Friday called for an end to cross-border and maritime attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militants and urged member states to beef up efforts to implement an arms embargo against them.

In a resolution renewing sanctions against the militants, the Council condemned the attacks and demanded an end to all such actions, "including those against infrastructure and civilian targets."

The text was adopted in a 13-0 vote, with permanent members China and Russia abstaining.

Targeted sanctions were extended until November 14, 2026, including a freezing of assets and travel bans currently in place against about 10 people, most of them high-ranking Houthi officials and the militia as a whole.

The text says that sanctions could now affect those who launch cross-border attacks from Yemeni territory using ballistic and cruise missile technology, or attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.

Member states were asked to "increase efforts to combat the smuggling of weapons and components via land and sea routes, to ensure implementation of the targeted arms embargo."

The Houthis, who hail from Yemen's rugged north, have controlled large swathes of the country, including the capital Sanaa, for more than a decade.

The militants have frequently launched attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea.

The UN text called on the panel of experts tasked with monitoring the application of the embargo to present a report to the Council by mid-April with recommendations on the sale and transfer to Yemen of "dual-use components and precursor chemicals" that could fall into Houthi hands.

Council members also want the report to offer advice on improving information sharing on vessels suspected of carrying arms in violation of existing sanctions.

"The resolution will support the council's ability to monitor and therefore deter violations of the arms embargo," Britain's interim UN envoy James Kariuki said.

But several member states, notably the United States and France, lamented that the Council had not gone farther.

"We regret that the text adopted was not more ambitious and does not reflect the deterioration of the situation in Yemen over the past year," said France's deputy envoy Jay Dharmadhikari.

But veto-wielding China and Russia kept the council from further strengthening the sanctions.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, the Houthis have increased the number of missile and drone attacks on Israeli soil and on ships in the Red Sea, claiming those actions were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.