Dialogue Session Postponed to Dec. 21 over Berri's Sister Death
The December 14 national dialogue session has been postponed to Monday, December 21, state-run National News Agency reported.
Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said the session was postponed due to the death of Mariam Berri, the sister of Speaker Nabih Berri.
NNA said the funeral will be held tomorrow, Saturday at her hometown Tebnin and that Berri would be receiving condolences in Beirut on December 14 and 15.
The postponement comes amid a flurry of political talks in the country that followed a Paris meeting between al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri and Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh.
Franjieh emerged as a potential presidential candidate after the meeting and his nomination is being proposed as part of a settlement that would end the political deadlock in Lebanon.
But the initiative ran into major hurdles in recent days after it drew objections and reservations from the country's main Christian parties – the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Party.
The most recent national dialogue session was held on November 25. The conferees addressed the ongoing presidential vacuum as Franjieh urged the media against exaggerating reports on ending the deadlock.
Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor.
Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 alliances over a consensual candidate have thwarted the polls.
Y.R.
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