BEIRUT The in-depth conversations of Morgan Ortagus, the United States Deputy Envoy to the Middle East, throughout her ill-fated three-day see to Beirut, required an immediate conference in between heads of Lebanons executive and legal powers, especially those related to the completion of the execution of UN Resolution 1701.
The conference, which brought together President of the Republic General Joseph Aoun and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, also dealt with a series of legal amendments banking in specific to guarantee that they are passed with agreement before starting any settlements with the International Monetary Fund or other international banks that are a source of financing (whether through loans or grants).
The discussion focused on the background of the so-called reform laws resolved by Ortagus.
She spoke on behalf of the worldwide community and donor institutions.Trumps envoy, who grumbled about what she considered sluggish process, said Lebanon needs to initially deal with the lifting of bank secrecy (with a retroactive impact of 10, not 3 years as proposed by the Lebanese government).
She even more required disclosure of operations involving nontransparent poles that took place in between 2015 and 2019.
The second item Ortagus pushed for was the restructuring of the banking sector on a basis constant with the global banking system, declaring that Lebanons reliance on a money economy made it an outstanding sanctuary for money laundering and circumventing international financial regulative filters.In addition to the above, Ortagus set extra immediate products connected to reforming the judiciary, managing border crossings and customizeds, and cleaning up the Ministry of Finance.In a television interview, Ortagus discussed what she raised with senior Lebanese officials concerning administrative, financial, legal, security, and military reforms as she put it particularly the fate of all illegal weapons, whether Lebanese or Palestinian.However, military and security reform can not be understood unless the fate of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon is dealt with, and Ortagus got a unified Lebanese position on this issue.In assessing Ortagus recent visit, observers think that the tour was flexible in design only, while in substance it was a repetition of the previous ones.Those observers preserve that the factor behind her calm and flexible manner, this time, is that Ortagus remains in the exact same scenario as other Trump administration authorities who entered the field of diplomacy without any previous experience, which triggered her to violate several diplomatic norms during her very first trip (noting that throughout her conference with Berri, Ortagus hid her Star of David necklace).
Other observers associate the adoption of a flexible and reserved method to the level of stress between Washington and Tehran, which had reached its peak during her first go to, while her current go to came ahead of the indirect negotiations under the auspices of the Sultanate of Oman.Nevertheless, Ortagus mentioned that the deadline offered to Beirut is not open-ended in the sense that the fast developments in the area may not remain in Lebanons favor.