Mikati receives “green and yellow lights” to hold a Cabinet session on Monday

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati set yesterday a "draft agenda" for the next Cabinet session and put together a "draft dispute" with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Gebran Bassil to the forefront again that rekindled the conflict between Mirna Chalouhi and the Grand Serail.

However, this time it was done in the context of a carefully orchestrated media exchange that Haret Hreik worked to "tune" in coordination between Bassil and Mikati.

To call the cabinet to meet early next week, sources with knowledge of the ongoing government contacts confirmed that Mikati took the "green and yellow lights" (in reference to the "Amal Movement" and "Hezbollah") to distribute the draft agenda to the ministers. 

If there are no emergencies, the invitation will likely be extended today, and the meeting will take place on Monday.

According to sources, "Mikati agreed on this scenario in advance with the Shiite duo during his meeting two days ago with the political aides of Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Ali Hassan Khalil and Hussein Al-Khalil." 

The sources revealed that the aides stressed during the meeting the need to prepare a brief agenda that includes urgent items so that "Hezbollah" can cover the holding of a cabinet meeting in front of the FPM and to secure a quorum.

Following discussions, it was decided that Mikati would distribute the agenda as a "draft agenda" to allow for any necessary amendments to its items and address the criticisms that had previously affected the previous government session.

In this context, sources noted that there are several possible scenarios to ensure a quorum for Monday's meeting.

One of these scenarios is the participation of Hezbollah's ministers, as they did during the previous session, or boycotting the meeting in coordination with the FPM in exchange for the participation of two FPM ministers to secure a quorum.

Contacts are still ongoing for this purpose, and it can be said that the quorum is almost secured and the convening of the cabinet is almost certain, according to these sources.

On the judicial level, the Lebanese authorities started the stage of "pushing the European investigators to leave" the Lebanese territories by placing obstacles in their judicial path to stop the investigation of the financial crimes committed against public funds and those involved.

Well-informed sources told "Nidaa Al-Watan" that this resulted in "clear annoyance with the German judicial delegation" that was tasked with looking into the money laundering case involving the Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, and others.

The delegation initially encountered the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Appeal of Beirut Ziad Abou Haidar's denial of Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ghassan Oweidat's request to facilitate the mission of the EU investigators before instructing Judge Raja Hamoush to assist the German delegation with Salameh's case.

The same sources added that the German investigators left their meeting with Hamoush "deeply disturbed" because he turned down their request for a copy of the file and only gave them "the right to view," stressing that "the process of assigning roles to obstruct the European investigation began."

Regarding the developments in the Beirut Port explosion case, the Agence France Press confirmed yesterday that a French investigative judge would visit Lebanon on the 23rd of this month to inquire about why the Lebanese Public Prosecutor's Office has not given the French judiciary the information and responses it had requested to support the French investigation's ongoing work into the August 4th explosion that claimed the lives of French citizens.