Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri stated that he will personally chair the dialogue regarding the election of a president for the republic "without any preconditions." Berri clarified the ongoing debate about who calls for and manages the dialogue, following the initiative launched by the "Moderation" parliamentary bloc to resolve the presidential stalemate. He confirmed to "Asharq Al-Awsat" that "the General Secretariat of Parliament will invite parliamentary blocs to participate in the dialogue that I will personally chair without preconditions, hoping that coming together at a round table will lead to consensus on a specific candidate, which would facilitate their election, as the exceptional circumstances Lebanon is facing demand that we put an end to the ongoing vacancy in the presidency sooner rather than later."
Berri's stance comes ahead of the second round where members of the "Moderation" bloc will visit their colleagues to agree on the mechanism for launching the dialogue, particularly regarding who will issue the invitation and who will manage the dialogue, based on the participants refraining from setting preconditions. For his part, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said: "We look very positively at the initiative of the (National Moderation Bloc) and the efforts of the (Five Ambassadors Committee) which seek to bring the perspectives of the Lebanese political forces closer together to end the presidential vacancy that has persisted since the autumn of 2022."
