Cabinet Forms Ministerial Panel that Will Negotiate with IMF

The new government held its first meeting Wednesday since it won a vote of confidence last week.

The president and prime minister authorized a committee to resume bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund over Lebanon's worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history. Talks with the IMF were suspended last year.

Information Minister George Kordahi told reporters after the meeting that the committee will be headed by the deputy prime minister and includes the ministers of finance and economy as well as the central bank governor and two experts representing the presidency. No date has been set for the resumption of the talks.

During the Cabinet session, the conferees also reaffirmed hundreds of emergency decrees issued by the caretaker government.

Media reports had said that the session might witness a dispute between President Michel Aoun and PM Najib Miqati over the composition of the committee that will negotiate with the IMF.