Aoun Denies Foreign Trips in Near Future

Free Patriotic Movement Chief MP Michel Aoun denied on Sunday media reports saying that he intends to carry out a foreign trip soon.

“It's absolutely false,” Aoun said via twitter.

On Saturday, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported that the Christian leader may travel to the French capital Paris on Tuesday to meet with head of al-Mustaqbal Movement Saad Hariri.

Sources told the daily that the “dialogue between the Mustaqbal Movement and FPM will resume openly soon.”

The resumption of the talks between the two sides will not necessarily mean that the Mustaqbal Movement will endorse Aoun's nomination for the presidency, added the sources.

The FPM chief has announced that he would only run for president if he was presented as a consensual nominee, particularly eying the support of the Mustaqbal Movement.

Mustaqbal bloc's MPs, however, are holding onto the March 14 alliance's candidate Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat agreed on Friday during a telephone conversation to hold a meeting in the near future.

The meeting's date will be announced later, a statement issued by Hariri's press office said.

Al-Akhbar and al-Liwaa newspapers have said the talks will be held next Tuesday.

Lebanon has been plunged into a leadership vacuum after Michel Suleiman's presidential term ended on May 25 with rival political blocs still divided over a new leader.

Over the past two months the parliament convened several times to try to elect a successor to Suleiman but failed during the last five sessions due to a lack of quorum.

The next elections session is scheduled for June 18.

H.K.