BEIRUT: Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said a new coalition government should be formed within a month, according to comments reported on Monday, as Prime Minister-designate Saad Al-Hariri launched difficult negotiations over the new cabinet.
Underscoring the complications, the Christian Lebanese Forces party demanded government representation equal to its main rival, the Free Patriotic Movement, and competition for cabinet portfolios also surfaced among rival Druze factions.
“Nobody has an interest in delaying the birth of the government or putting complications in its way,” Berri told people who had visited him, the Hariri-owned newspaper Al-Mustaqbal reported.
Hariri, who will be prime minister for the third time, said last week all parties agreed that economic risks at home and growing dangers in the region meant a national unity government must be formed as quickly as possible.
The Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah aims to secure a bigger say in the next government than it had in the last one, after the heavily armed group and its allies made significant gains in a May 6 general election.
Lebanon’s dire economic situation and unsustainable debt levels are seen as top priorities for the next government. So too is the Syrian refugee crisis for a country where one in four people is a Syrian refugee.
The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, told reporters after meeting Hariri that his party had requested a “weighty ministry” in the new government.
Senior political sources have said Hezbollah is seeking at least one service-provision ministry and will have three instead of two ministries this time. The group has typically taken ministries of marginal importance.
Hezbollah, along with groups and individuals that support its possession of arms, won at least 70 of parliament’s 128 seats in the election, a reversal of Lebanon’s last legislative election, which returned an anti-Hezbollah majority in 2009.
The staunchly anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces party is seeking more government ministries to reflect its gains in the election. The LF, led by Maronite politician Samir Geagea, nearly doubled its number of seats in parliament, winning 15.
“The (LF) representation must be equal to the representation of the FPM,” LF lawmaker George Adwan said after meeting Hariri.
The FPM was founded by President Michel Aoun, and has been led by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil since 2015. The group has been politically allied to Hezbollah since 2006.
Bassil, foreign minister in the outgoing government, said the FPM’s share of cabinet posts should include either the ministry of finance or the interior, saying his party had been denied both since 2005.
Berri is insisting that the finance ministry remains with his Shiite Amal Movement. Hezbollah supports that demand, according to sources familiar with the group’s thinking.
The interior ministry was controlled by Hariri’s Future Movement in the outgoing government. Hariri lost more than a third of its seats in the election, many of them to Hezbollah allies.
Lebanon’s Berri upbeat on gov’t as rivalries surface
Lebanon’s Berri upbeat on gov’t as rivalries surface
- Speaker Berri says gov't to be formed within a month
- Hezbollah seeking "weighty" ministry
Israel PM calls security chief ‘liar’, in court filing
- Bar’s dismissal, announced by the government last month but frozen by the country’s top court, triggered mass protests.
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an affidavit before the Supreme Court on Sunday, described as a “liar” the country’s internal security chief, whom the government is trying to fire.
Netanyahu’s response came almost a week after Shin Bet head Ronen Bar himself made a sworn statement to the court. It accused the prime minister of demanding personal loyalty and ordering him to spy on anti-government protesters.
Bar’s dismissal, announced by the government last month but frozen by the country’s top court, triggered mass protests.
The unprecedented move to fire the head of the Shin Bet security agency has been contested by the attorney general and the opposition, which appealed Bar’s firing to the Supreme Court.
“The accusation according to which I allegedly demanded action against innocent civilians, or against a non-violent and legitimate protest during the protests of 2023, is an absolute lie,” Netanyahu said in his court statement.
In his own affidavit, Bar had said “it was clear” that in the event of a potential constitutional crisis, Netanyahu would expect Bar to obey the prime minister and not the courts.
Netanyahu countered: “There is no proof supporting these remarks.”
Bar had also denied accusations by Netanyahu and his associates that the Shin Bet had failed to warn in time about Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
“Nothing was hidden” on that night from the security apparatus or the prime minister, Bar said.
Netanyahu countered before the court that Bar “did not accomplish his mission” that night.
“He did not wake up the prime minister. He did not wake up the minister of defense. He did not wake up the soldiers of the army,” or others before the attack, Netanyahu alleged.
The prime minister’s 23-page document said Bar “failed in his role as chief of Shin Bet and lost the confidence of the entire Israeli government as far as his ability to continue to manage the organization.”
Netanyahu’s office had already made similar public comments immediately after Bar filed his affidavit.
An April 8 Supreme Court hearing on the government’s plans to fire Bar ruled that he “will continue to perform his duties until a later decision.”
Syria rejects Kurds’ call for decentralization
- The new authorities in Syria, who replaced the overthrown Bashar Assad in December, have repeatedly rejected the idea of Kurdish autonomy
- Most of Syria’s oil and gas fields are in areas administered by the Kurdish authorities
DAMASCUS: The Syrian presidency rejected on Sunday a Kurdish call for a decentralized state, warning against attempts at separatism or federalism by the minority group.
“We reject clearly any attempt to impose a separatist reality or to create separate entities under the cover of federalism... without a national consensus,” the presidency said in a statement in which it also condemned “the recent activities and declarations” of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that “call for federalism.”
“The unity of Syria, of its territories and its people is a red line,” the statement said.
The declaration came a day after a conference of Syrian Kurdish parties adopted a joint vision of a “decentralized democratic state.”
The new authorities in Syria, who replaced the overthrown Bashar Assad in December, have repeatedly rejected the idea of Kurdish autonomy.
The US-backed Kurds control large areas of northeastern Syria, much of which they took over in the process of defeating jihadists of the Daesh group between 2015 and 2019.
They have enjoyed de facto autonomy since early in the civil war which broke out in 2011, but the new authorities have insisted on a unitary state.
In March, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and the SDF chief Mazloum Abdi, signed an agreement to integrate Kurdish institutions into the Syrian state.
Abdi told the conference on Saturday that “my message to all Syrian constituents and the Damascus government is that the conference does not aim, as some say, at division.”
Instead it aimed “for the unity of Syria,” he insisted.
“We support all Syrian components receiving their rights in the constitution to be able to build a decentralized democratic Syria that embraces everyone,” Abdi said.
Most of Syria’s oil and gas fields are in areas administered by the Kurdish authorities. These may prove a crucial resource for Syria’s new authorities as they seek to rebuild the war-devastated country.
Iran’s president visits site of port blast that killed 28
- The explosion ripped through the port as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear program
- While Iranian authorities appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with Israel
TEHRAN: Iran’s president visited on Sunday the scene of a massive port blast that killed 28 people and injured more than 1,000, as fires still blazed more than 24 hours after the explosion.
The blast occurred on Saturday at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.
With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, were ordered closed on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.
The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.
Arriving in Bandar Abbas, President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed his appreciation to first responders, adding “we have come to see first-hand if there is anything or any issue that the government can follow up on.”
“We will try to take care of the families who lost their loved ones, and we will definitely take care of the dear people who got injured,” he said.
Pezeshkian had previously ordered an investigation into the cause of the blast.
Russia’s embassy said Moscow was sending multiple “aircraft carrying specialists” to help fight the blaze. According to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, one of the aircraft is a dedicated firefighting plane.
The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.
Defense ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area.”
The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot.
A regional emergency official said several containers had exploded.
Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Koolivand, in a video shared on the government’s official website, gave an updated toll on Sunday of 28 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.
The ISNA news agency, citing the provincial judiciary, gave a higher toll of 1,242 injured and also put the number of dead at 28.
Koolivand said some of the injured were airlifted for treatment in the capital Tehran.
Thick black smoke was still visible in live footage from the scene aired by state TV on Sunday.
“The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported from the scene.
The explosion was felt and heard about 50 kilometers away, Fars news agency reported.
Also at the scene on Sunday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said “the situation has stabilized in the main areas” of the port, and workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.
Another official on site, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh, said only one zone of the port was impacted, and cargo “operations are still continuing as normal in the several other zones.”
An image from Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday showed a helicopter flying through a sky blackened by smoke to drop water on the disaster-struck area.
Others showed firefighters working among toppled and blackened cargo containers, and carrying out the body of a victim.
The authorities have closed off the roads leading to the site, and footage from the area has been limited to Iranian media outlets.
Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday that three Chinese victims were in a “stable” condition.
The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences, as did Pakistan, India, Turkiye and the United Nations as well as Russia.
The Tehran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah also offered condolences, saying Iran, with its “faith and solid will, can overcome this tragic accident.”
In the first reaction from a major European country, the German embassy in Tehran said on Instagram: “Bandar Abbas we grieve with you.”
Authorities declared a day of national mourning on Monday, and three days of mourning in Hormozgan province from Sunday.
The explosion ripped through the port as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, with both sides reporting progress afterwards.
While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.
According to the Washington Post, Israel in 2020 launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port.
Jordanian government spokesperson says country remains firmly supportive of Palestine
- Mohammad Momani affirms that Jordan backs self-determination of Palestinians
- Remarks made during seminar commemorating 105th anniversary of martyrdom of Kaid Al-Mefleh Obeidat
LONDON: Minister of Communication Mohammad Momani has said that Jordan’s commitment to “defending” Palestinian rights in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza “remains firm.”
Momani, who is also the spokesperson for the Jordanian government, said that the country supported the right of Palestinians to self-determination, and the establishment of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
His remarks were made on Saturday during a seminar commemorating the 105th anniversary of the martyrdom of Kaid Al-Mefleh Obeidat. He is remembered as a national hero after being the first Jordanian to lose his life in resisting Zionist groups during the British mandate in Palestine in 1920.
Momani said: “Supporting the Palestinian cause should not come at the expense of Jordan’s national stability but should be expressed through unity behind the Hashemite leadership, the Arab army, and the security agencies.”
He added that “Obeidat’s martyrdom … highlights Jordan’s long-standing sacrifices for Arab unity and freedom,” the Jordan News Agency reported.
Momani said that Jordan’s support resulted from its religious, moral, and humanitarian obligations and that a Palestinian state was vital to Jordan’s national interests, according to Petra.
He said that King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein continued “to champion the Palestinian cause, maintaining Jordan as a bastion of steadfastness amid regional upheavals.”
Qatari emir, Turkish FM discuss Syria, Gaza in Doha
- Hakan Fidan meets Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani at Lusail Palace
LONDON: Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani received the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan at Lusail Palace in Doha on Sunday.
During the meeting, the two leaders discussed significant regional and international developments, especially those concerning Gaza, the Palestinian territories, and Syria.
Sheikh Tamim and Fidan reviewed strategic relations between Doha and Ankara, as well as ways to strengthen and develop ties, the Qatar News Agency reported.
