Vatican City (agencies)
Pope Francis met with the Lebanese Prime Minister yesterday, and pledged to do everything in his power to help the country “give up again.” The Vatican said, in a statement, that the Pope and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who took office in September, after failing to form a new government for a whole year, held a private meeting that lasted for about twenty minutes, during which they discussed the country’s collapsed economy and social crisis.
For his part, the Pope said to the Lebanese delegation, after the special meeting: “Lebanon is a country, a message, and even a promise worth fighting for.” He continued, “I pledge to work through diplomatic channels with other countries in order to crystallize a joint effort to help Lebanon rise again.”
Poverty is rampant in Lebanon in the wake of the 2019 financial meltdown, and foreign donors are demanding an audit of Lebanon’s central bank accounts and economic reforms before aid money is released.
Meanwhile, Lebanese President General Michel Aoun received yesterday a congratulatory message from French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of Lebanon’s independence, in which he expressed his concern over the crisis in which Lebanon is currently mired.
“I would like to express strongly how concerned I am about the crisis that your country has recently plunged into,” Macron said in his message.
He believed that “these reforms are in depth, and their workshops must be launched as quickly as possible, in line with the requirements of all the true friends of Lebanon, as well as with the legitimate expectations previously expressed by the Lebanese people.”
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister, His Excellency Al-Shami, confirmed, after his meeting with President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, yesterday, the end of technical negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the entry into the stage of negotiations on monetary and economic policies.
Al-Shami said, according to a statement by the Lebanese presidency: “The negotiations will start in earnest with the IMF team, which we hope will visit Lebanon soon.” In addition, the Lebanese currency fell to a new low against the dollar, yesterday, amid a state of paralysis in the government, with the exacerbation of the financial collapse in the country.
A number of currency exchangers in Beirut said that the pound amounted to about 24,200 to the dollar, falling below the lowest level ever at about 24 thousand recorded last July.
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