Hariri, Bassil Hold 'Very Good' Meeting after Rift Reports

Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Free Patriotic Movement chief and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil held talks Friday at the Center House, following tensions between their two parties.

Describing the meeting with Bassil as “very good,” Hariri told reporters that his relation with the FPM chief remained intact despite the tensions between the FPM and al-Mustaqbal Movement.

Earlier in the day, informed sources told LBCI TV that the meeting between the two men was “excellent.”

“The meeting confirmed once again that there is no problem between the two sides and it involved ordinary coordination on several files,” the sources added.

“The meeting kickstarts a series of contacts that the head of the bloc (Bassil) will carry out to invigorate governmental work with the aim of finalizing the 2020 state budget based on the needed reformist principles and implementing the electricity plan,” the sources said.

They added: “The meeting with Hariri was fruitful and the atmosphere is more than excellent and there was an exchange of ideas in order to push things in the right direction.”

A meeting between Bassil and cadres of Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal Movement was called off Tuesday amid tensions between the two parties.

MP George Atallah of the FPM’s Strong Lebanon bloc said “Mustaqbal officials asked Prime Minister Saad Hariri to call off the seminar following tweets by Strong Lebanon bloc MP Ziad Aswad.

“Hariri agreed to their request,” Atallah added, in remarks to MTV.

“According to our information, the Mustaqbal officials demanded a clarification about Aswad’s tweets in order to reconsider the meeting with Bassil,” Atallah added.