Miqati Not at Ease with Resigned Cabinet, Rejects Oil Session without Consensus
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati expressed unease at the failure to form a new government, saying he wanted to refer his authorities to the new PM as soon as possible.
In an interview with As Safir daily published on Monday, Miqati said: “I am not comfortable with the continued status of caretaking.”
“It's time to form a government and there should be a serious will to form an all-embracing cabinet … to confront internal challenges and the repercussions of the latest developments in the region,” he said.
The obstacles preventing the formation of the new cabinet lie in lack of trust among the involved parties, he said.
Differences on the number of shares of each camp in the government are secondary, he added.
Miqati reiterated that he would not call for a cabinet session to approve oil exploration decrees as long as there is lack of consensus on them.
He stressed that recent stances reveal that some parties have expressed reservations on Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil's approach to oil exploration.
Miqati said the formation of the Petroleum Authority last year was one of the most important achievements.
He called for allowing the authority, which includes competent people, to do its job and take the appropriate decisions to guarantee a better oil exploration process.
His remarks came as Bassil and caretaker Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, who is Speaker Nabih Berri's adviser, engaged in a war of words.
Bassil claimed that “some parties” would prevent authorities from drilling oil in several areas.
Oil should not be turned into a sect, he said.
But Khalil snapped back at him, accusing him of lacking patriotism and seeking to keep northern and southern areas of the country out of the tenders.
Two decrees are yet to be approved to award tenders for offshore oil and gas exploration. Their approval would designate Lebanon’s 10 offshore blocks for exploration and determine the model for revenue sharing.
Berri wants to assign the 10 blocks together while Bassil wants to assign two for the time being.
Meanwhile, Miqati congratulated the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch on its “important achievement” in the Tripoli mosque bombings of August 23.
The investigation is ongoing to arrest all the suspects, he said in a statement after the Intelligence Branch seized a Tripoli man identified as Youssef Diab, who admitted to parking a booby-trapped car near al-Salam mosque and then triggering the explosives.
Diab is from the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, whose residents are Alawites and back Syrian President Bashar Assad.
An Nahar daily said a seven-member network was involved in the bombings at al-Salam and al-Taqwa mosques. Three of them are now in custody – Diab, who was arrested last Friday, Hassan Jaafar, who has facilitated the transfer of the car bombs from Syria, and Anas Hamza.
The ringleader, Hayan Haidar, and three others are nowhere to be found.
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