New government formed in Lebanon

BEIRUT-

A new Lebanese government was announced on Saturday following a 10-month political impasse during which spillover violence from neighboring Syria worsened internal instability.

“A government in the national interest was formed in a spirit of inclusivity,” new Prime Minister Tammam Salam declared on live television.

He expressed a hope to hold presidential elections before President Michel Suleiman’s mandate expires in May and finally conduct parliamentary polls that were postponed last year due to the political impasse.

“I extend my hand to all the leaders and I am relying on their wisdom to reach these goals and I call on all of them together to make concessions in the interest of our national project,” he said.

Until now, an interim government had been in charge of Lebanon since the resignation of former Prime Minister Najib Mikati in March.

As Mikati resigned, parties aligned with the Shi’ite Hezbollah movement and a Sunni-led rival bloc pursued a power struggle intensified by their support for opposing sides in Syria’s almost three-year-old civil war.

Salam, a Sunni lawmaker, was made the prime minister in April 2013, but he had been unable to form a cabinet for months due to rivalries between the Hezbollah-dominated March 8 bloc and the March 14 alliance, led by the Sunni Future Party.

Former Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, from the March 8 bloc, becomes foreign minister. Former Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, also from March 8, takes the finance portfolio. Nouhad Machnouk, a March 14 legislator, was named interior minister.

Salam said his “national interest government” had a mandate to fight mounting security problems, which he linked to Syria.

“We must also deal with our complicated economic and social issues, the most important of which is the growing number of refugees from our Syrian brothers and the burdens this has placed on Lebanon,” he said.

Sectarian violence has erupted sporadically in the past year, particularly in the north, and car bombings targeting both security and political targets have increased dramatically, with Hezbollah-dominated areas being the most frequent target.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the formation of the government as “an important first step” towards addressing Lebanon’s recent political uncertainty.

“Amidst growing terrorism and sectarian violence, we look to the new cabinet, if approved by parliament, to address Lebanon’s urgent security, political and economic needs,” Kerry added.

Lebanon, still struggling to recover from its own 1975-1990 civil war, has found its internal rifts aggravated by the conflict in Syria, whose sectarian divisions mirror its own.

Hezbollah, a militant and political movement supported by Shi’ite Iran, is one of the most powerful groups in Lebanon and fought an inconclusive war with Israel in 2006. It has sent fighters to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is a Shi’ite offshoot.