Washington Denies Imposing Sanctions on Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor

Washington Denies Imposing Sanctions on Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor

The US State Department denied on Saturday that it was considering imposing sanctions on Lebanon’s central bank governor Riad Salameh.

“We have seen these rumors, and while we generally are not discussing any possible sanctions, I can confirm that these rumors are not based on facts,” a US State Department spokesperson said, in an email to Asharq Al-Awsat.

News emerged in Lebanon about the possibility of the US Treasury Department imposing sanctions on Salameh for his involvement in “covering Hezbollah's financial activities.”

While the State Department slammed these rumors as inaccurate, US sources said that issuing this type of decision is completely unlikely, at least at this stage, regardless of whether the accusations were true or false.

US officials reportedly said that dealing with Salameh cannot be isolated from addressing the overall crisis in Lebanon.

Lebanon still needs to elect a new president, reconfigure its political powers, and develop economic, financial, and monetary reforms to curb the decay of its financial and banking systems.

The officials added that Hezbollah’s exploitation of the Lebanese banking system to launder its money is a well-known matter and that US administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have always tried to put an end to it.

Hezbollah claims that it has succeeded in