Portugal’s prime minister Luís Montenegro has today expressed his hope that diplomatic dialogue will be quickly restored – and that hostilities will cease – following bombings carried out by Israel and the United States against Iran.
The PM spoke to journalists at the end of the presentation session of this year’s DECIR – the country’s wildfire firefighting nucleus, in Ponte da Barca (Viana do Castelo).
The head of government said he was following the situation of Portuguese nationals caught up in the conflict “with great concern.”
“Right now, our primary concern is for Portuguese citizens in the region. We have our entire consular structure available and on the ground to try and address all requests,” he stressed.
Luís Montenegro did not quantify the number of Portuguese people who have already expressed a desire to leave various countries that have been experiencing retaliatory attacks by Iran.
“We have had several contacts and, above all, we have appealed to all those who have this need, some of whom are tourists in transit who were caught completely unprepared, to have access to an emergency number and, through it, contact the government so that we can try, with the airlines, to expedite their return to Portugal,” he added.
The PM is currently having a ‘very difficult time’ – given that the media has been focusing on the many utterances of former PSD prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho, who keeps insisting on wider government reforms, and a pact between parties of the right (meaning CHEGA, Iniciativa Liberal and those of the AD government).
If there was such a pact, the right in Portugal would be unbeatable: left wing parties combined could not vote anything down. But, up until now, AD has shown absolute anathema to ‘courting’ the support of CHEGA – and this is now seeing divisions opening up in Luís Montenegro’s PSD party.
Source material: Lusa/ Correio da Manhã
