BEIRUT: The international community should give Lebanon the needed assistance to provide aid for Syrian refugees, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Saturday, adding that only limited aid had materialized.
“This issue [of refugees] is a main priority for the Lebanese government, given its political, social, health and security repercussions on Lebanon,” said Mikati, who met and telephoned a number of diplomats, according to a statement from his office.
“Despite many promises made to Lebanon in the past, particularly in the [January] Kuwait donors conference whereby Arab and international assistance in providing relief for refugees [was promised], the Lebanese government has received little support so far,” Mikati said.
“This is happening at a time when the number of refugees is increasing and the Lebanese government finds itself unable to cope with the increasing cost of relief efforts,” the caretaker premier added.
Mikati said that the issue of Syrian refugees should be a priority for the international community and on the agenda of a conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. to help in resolving the conflict in Syria.
He said that the “radical solution” to the Syrian refugee crisis lay in a peaceful solution to the unrest in Lebanon’s neighbor.
The caretaker prime minister received at the Grand Serail UNHCR resident representative Ninette Kelley and caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.
Copyrights 2011, The Daily Star - All Rights Reserved
11/05/2013
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/May-11/216739-aid-for-syrian-refugees-failing-to-materialize-mikati.ashx#axzz2SzGDFC8D
