The Lebanese Presidency announced that President Michel Aoun will meet with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri at Baabda Palace today, Thursday, to discuss developments in the formation of the government, after the two sides exchanged accusations of obstruction yesterday.
In a brief tweet on Twitter, the presidency stated that the meeting - which came at the invitation of Aoun - will take place at 3 pm today, Lebanese time.
The director of the Al-Jazeera office in Beirut, Mazen Ibrahim, said that it is not expected that today's meeting will lead to a solution to the crisis and the formation of the government, because the disagreement between the two parties is still great.
For his part, Mustafa Alloush, deputy head of the Future Movement, said - in a radio interview - that Hariri will not make an apology for forming the government, stressing that Hariri is open to discussing the ministerial formation that was previously proposed.
Alloush, an advisor to Hariri, added, "In the event of the president's resignation, the appointed president will become an apologetic referee," stressing that the parliament is the reference.
President Aoun has set an appointment for President-designate Saad Hariri at 3:00 pm today to visit Baabda Palace
- Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency) March 18, 2021
Aoun issued a statement yesterday inviting Hariri to the meeting and blaming him for the delay in forming the government. He said, "My call to the designated president comes from the basis of his constitutional responsibility and his human and national conscience, because such popular suffering will not show mercy to the one responsible for obstruction, exclusion and perpetuating the conduct of business."
Aoun also gave the prime minister-designate a choice between forming a government or "giving way to anyone who is able to write."
My call is resolute and sincere to the President-designate to initiate immediately one of the two available options, where silence and adherence to fortified homes will not benefit from today, so hopefully we will save Lebanon
- General Michel Aoun (@General_Aoun) March 17, 2021
As for Hariri, he issued a statement yesterday in which he said that he was surprised, just as all the Lebanese were, that President Aoun was inviting him by televised speech to the Presidential Palace, for immediate writing, stressing that he had visited the President 16 times since he was appointed to form the government, to agree on a government of non-partisan specialists capable of implementing Agreed upon reforms.
He stressed that he is ready to visit Aoun again immediately, "to discuss with him in the squad that has been in his hands for many weeks, and to have immediate access to the announcement of the formation of the government."
Hariri added that the president should also "reduce the pain and suffering of the Lebanese by allowing early presidential elections, which are the only constitutional means capable of canceling the effects of his selection by the representatives to head the republic five years ago, just as they chose me as a president in charge of forming the government 5 months ago."