Lebanon's Maronite patriarch calls for national unity

Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir believes the fact that there is no national unity cabinet in Lebanon is the source of all the country's problems.

Thus, he has called on the authorities to speed up their efforts to establish a national unity government.

"The government lineup should be quickly handed over to the president in a bid to preserve Lebanon and national unity," Sfeir said on Monday.

Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri abandoned his first attempt to form a national unity cabinet last month after the Hezbollah-led opposition rejected a team he proposed.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the line-up would only further confuse the situation in Lebanon.