Khazen

by daily star.com.lb BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblatt contacted Prime Minister Saad Hariri to voice his objection to Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s diplomatic appointments, the daily newspaper Al-Hayat reported Wednesday. The draft of Bassil’s new diplomatic changes has been met with objections, Al-Hayat quoted political sources as saying. The same sources relayed Hariri’s understanding of Jumblatt’s position on some of the diplomatic transfers that Bassil is trying to make, which contradict with a previously approved schedule on the distribution of appointees at Lebanese embassies at the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. According to the schedule of diplomatic distributions, the Embassy of Lebanon in Russia should be managed by members of the Druze community; however, Bassil’s new formations suggest that said embassy be managed by a member of the Lebanese Orthodox community. Bassil wants to give the Druze community the Lebanese Embassy in Beijing instead, a move which the PSP has rejected. Jumblatt’s fresh contacts with Hariri over the matter seem to mark the resumption of communications between both sides.