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BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman called Saturday for an inclusive government that can garner the widest political support and stressed the need for a return to the Baabda Declaration which aims to distance Lebanon from the crisis in Syria.

“Sleiman stressed to his visitors on the importance of intensifying efforts in order to participate in a government that incorporates everyone and enjoys the broadest support,” his office said in a statement.

BEIRUT: Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad said Saturday the resistance group and its allies should be fully represented in the next Cabinet or the government will never form.

“We have agreed with our allies that either we all participate in the government or we are all out,” Raad, head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, said during an Iftar hosted by Hezbollah in the south.

Raad said that his party would not accept any other government make-up “in order to guarantee that no [political party] conspires against [Hezbollah].”

BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman hoped Monday that the EU would reconsider its decision to blacklist Hezbollah's military wing for the sake of stability in Lebanon.

According to his office, Sleiman met with EU Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst at Baabda Palace where the former sought clarification on the reasoning behind such a move.

BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri questioned reasons behind a boycott of Parliament and a campaign against the Army, saying Wednesday the two are part of the same issue.

“The most dangerous [thing] facing us today is this attack on the Lebanese Army by some and this suspicious campaign,” lawmakers quoted Berri as saying after attending a weekly meeting in Ain el-Tineh.

BEIRUT: Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam Thursday began a new round of talks with representatives of parliamentary blocs in a bid to achieve a breakthrough in the Cabinet formation, stalled for over three months.

For his part, Speaker Nabih Berri said it would be impossible to form a government in which Hezbollah was not represented.

Salam discussed efforts to form the new government with Future Movement MPs Atef Majdalani, Bassem Shab and Riyad Rahhal at his Mosseitbeh residence.

BEIRUT: A row that deepened Monday over the constitutionality of Parliament sessions is threatening to throw the state’s security and legislative institutions into paralysis with all the dire consequences this entailed on the country’s stability, political sources said.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt called Sunday for a swift Cabinet formation to ward off the threat of strife facing the divided country, saying the bloody clashes in Sidon have added urgency to the need for a new government.

“A government must be formed without impossible conditions being set. Let the differences be taken from the street to the Cabinet table,” Jumblatt told Al-Jadeed TV by telephone.

He voiced support for the Army’s efforts to prevent strife as a result of deep national divisions over the more than 2-year-old civil war in Syria.

Caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil blasts his ally Hezbollah for disloyalty toward the Free Patriotic Movement.

Bassil said in remarks published Tuesday that Hezbollah “stabbed both Tayyar [FPM] and democracy in the back” over the matter of challenges to the Constitutional Council.

The council, set to meet Tuesday, failed to convene twice last week after three of its members – two Shiites and a Druze – did not show up.

The FPM and President Michel Sleiman have each handed petitions to Council over the recent decision to extend Parliament’s term.