WASHINGTON, June 15 (UPI) -- Washington still sees value in providing assistance to the Lebanese government, a State Department spokesman said after a new government emerged in Beirut.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced Monday he formed a new Cabinet that puts March 8, a political alliance that includes Hezbollah lawmakers, in the majority.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in response that Washington should cut off the funding for Lebanon.
"The U.S. should immediately cut off assistance to the Lebanese government as long as any violent extremist group designated by the U.S. as foreign terrorist organizations participates in it," she said in a statement this week.
U.S. lawmakers last year considered withholding aid to Lebanon because of concerns about Hezbollah but said Beirut could handle the assistance responsibly.
Mark Toner, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told reporters during his regular briefing that Washington was taking a wait-and-see approach with the new Lebanese government.
Toner stressed that Washington might take a closer look at its assistance to Lebanon but added the U.S. government continued "to see value in that assistance."
