Zaki: Arab League is Ready to Offer Help for Lebanon

Arab League Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki visited Beirut on Thursday for meetings with senior officials, amid a government impasse in the crisis-gripped country.

“The Lebanese people are suffering from enormous pressure and the aim of my visit to get acquainted and evaluate the situation in whole,” said Zaki from Baabda where he met with President Michel Aoun.

He added that the Arab League wishes to provide help for Lebanon to be able to steer out of the crisis.

The “traditional and routine action” of the Lebanese state must be “set aside” and substituted with serious “work that takes into account the special situation in the country. We hope that we will help in this context to get Lebanon out of the crisis,” said Zaki.

Al-Joumhouria daily had reported Thursday that unnamed sources accompanying the visit suggested that there might be some Arab effort to push forward the formation of the government.

Lebanese leaders have failed for almost three months, since the designation of PM Saad Hariri in October, to line up a government capable of steering the country out of its crises.

A French initiative urging politicians to line up a reform-oriented government of experts in order to provide much-needed assistance for Lebanon has so far failed.

French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to visit Beirut on December 21-23 in what reports say is his last attempt to persuade Lebanese leaders to form a cabinet.

Lebanon is grappling with a worsening economic and financial crisis, in addition to the repercussions of a colossal port explosion back in August, and the COVID-19 pandemic.