Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, has on Saturday handed President Michel Sleiman the government’s official resignation.

Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, has on Saturday handed President Michel Sleiman the official resignation.

For his part, Sleiman accepted the resignation.

Mikati explained that he stepped down from his post “to pave the way for the formation of a national salvation government that would ensure the participation of all political forces and parliamentary blocs,” he told reported at Baabda Presidential Palace.

“The new government should serve to restore dialogue that the president was and still is seeking,” Mikati  added.

Answering a question whether he had consulted any foreign or local power before his resignation, Mikati said: “decision of resignation was personal, I consulted nobody.”