The Daily Star BEIRUT: Washington does “not know the answer yet” if it will work with the new Lebanese government, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. “We’ll have to take a look at it. I don’t know the answer to that yet,” the top U.S. diplomat told Bloomberg in an interview from Jamaica. Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Hassan Diab formed a 20-member government late Tuesday night made up of Hezbollah and its allies.

He cited Lebanon’s “terrible financial crisis that lays in front of it in just the weeks ahead.” Pompeo said that Washington was prepared to engage and provide support to Diab’s government, “but only to a government that’s committed to reform.” Speaking about the nationwide anti-government protests that have been taking place since Oct. 17, Pompeo said the U.S. wanted a “non-corrupt government” that reflects the will of the Lebanese people. “If this government is responsive to that and there’s a new set of leaders that’s prepared to make those commitments and deliver on that, that’s the kind of government that we’ll support around the world and the kind of government we would support in Lebanon,” Pompeo said.