Aoun 'Waiting for Hariri', Center House Says Govt. Hinges on 'Iran-U.S. Talks'

President Michel Aoun is “still waiting for Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri” to make a move regarding the formation of the new government, sources informed on Baabda’s stance said.

The president has told Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi that he has “no intention” to obtain a one-third-plus-one share in the new cabinet, the sources added, in remarks to the al-Anbaa news portal of the Progressive Socialist Party.

Center House sources meanwhile told al-Anbaa that the government’s formation is now hinging on “the developments of the Iranian-American negotiations.”

Should the negotiations make progress, “Lebanon might be given the green light” to form a government, the sources said.

The sources added that “it would be wrong to limit the problem to (Free Patriotic Movement chief MP) Jebran Bassil.”

“The problem is in the hands of a bigger party, specifically Hizbullah, and Bassil is only a recipient” of instructions, the sources claimed.

Bassil is “preoccupied with having the U.S. sanctions lifted off him, not with the government,” the sources added.