Prime Minister-designate, Najib Mikati, on Friday regretted the fact that Lebanon was celebrating Adha Eid amid a very difficult stage of its history.

Marking this occasion, the Caretaker Prime Minister called on all sides to cooperate and confront the dire prevailing circumstances by demonstrating national solidarity and exerting utmost efforts to halt the collapse.

“All sides are called forth to preserve, as much as possible, the cohesion and productivity of state institutions and administrations, in parallel with the government’s intensive efforts to put the country back on the path of economic, financial, and social recovery,” Mikati said in a statement.

“The upcoming deadlines require us to expedite proactive steps, the most prominent of which is the formation of a new government, which coincides with the last months of President Michel Aoun’s mandate, and the election of a new president for Lebanon,” he added.

“Our resigned government continues its work in a bid to address the country’s many issues in a spirit of positive cooperation, in parallel with similar cooperation with the Parliament to approve the state’s budget bill and several reform projects that constitute an essential step for achieving the final understanding with the International Monetary Fund,” he explained.

"Our government is being subjected to an unjust and organized campaign with the aim of stopping the basic steps it’s taking to protect the rights of depositors and preserve the banking sector,” he noted.

 Mikati pointed out that all those campaigns would not change the fact that it is not the current government that has seized the depositors’ money and brought the banking sector to this situation.

 “On the contrary, our government gives priority to protecting the rights of depositors and reaching a clear and scientific solution to return funds to their owners,” he asserted.

The Prime minister-designate concluded his statement by congratulating all the Lebanese and Muslims in Lebanon and the world marking the blessed Adha Eid.