Reports: Adib to Meet Berri; FPM Wants Finance, Interior Portfolios
Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib will meet with Speaker Nabih Berri in the coming hours in a bid to resolve the dispute over the finance ministerial portfolio, media reports said.
"He will seek to reach a middle ground formula regarding the finance portfolio," to which Berri and Hizbullah are "clinging," the privately-owned al-Markazia news agency quoted political sources as saying.
Adib had held phone talks with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Sunday evening, hours after Berri and the FPM chief expressed dismay over the way in which the PM-designate is seeking to form the new government.
French President Emmanuel Macron has also called Berri and Bassil after the emergence of hurdles delaying the formation of the new government.
The political sources said Adib is showing cooperation because he does not want to "break anyone" although he is still seeking to form "a small government of independent experts" with a rotation of the key ministerial portfolios.
MTV meanwhile reported that Aoun and Bassil want a 20- or 24-member cabinet and "have no problem in the rotation of portfolios on the condition of getting the interior and finance portfolios."
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