The Maronite bishop of Beirut, Boulos Matar, said Friday that a Christian-Muslim summit scheduled to be held in Bkirki next week is aimed at stressing the importance of swiftly electing a president and discussing the demands of anti-government demonstrators.

Matar told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the summit which will be held on Monday will focus on two main issues – the election of a head of state as soon as possible and the demands of the people.

Speaker Nabih Berri has been holding contacts with Lebanese political parties to revive the all-party talks that he had launched in 2006, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

Berri has been holding consultations to bring the rival politicians on the dialogue table either in Ain el-Tineh or in parliament, the daily said.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam is expected to call for a cabinet session next week for “refusing to give up to paralysis,” his sources said Friday.

The sources quoted Salam as saying that “giving up to the logic of paralysis” is not part of his “dictionary.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has warned that the state would “collapse” if Baabda Palace remained vacant and the cabinet crisis was not solved, As Safir daily reported on Thursday.

“I have told Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that (Tehran's) lauding of the (Lebanese) government and its head should be interpreted with bringing a consensual president or else Lebanon would collapse and be destroyed,” Salam said, according to As Safir.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reiterated that his ally Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun remains a strong candidate for the presidency.

“We will continue to back his candidacy,” Nasrallah, whose remarks were released by the party's press office Wednesday, said at the launching of a new university.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has said that he was procrastinating on calling for a cabinet session to allow consultations taking place among officials to resolve the government crisis.

“The state's prestige is at stakes amid a paralysis striking its institutions,” Salam told An Nahar daily published on Monday.

Speaker Nabih Berri postponed on Wednesday the presidential elections to next month following a lack of quorum at parliament, a sign that politicians were far from filling the prolonged vacuum in the country's top Christian post.

Berri postponed the session to September 2 after only 34 MPs from the March 14 alliance and his Development and Liberation bloc attended.

Speaker Nabih Berri reiterated that he backed the appointment of top security and military officials but would not reject the extension of their terms if the government failed to reach an agreement on the controversial issue.

“I am with the appointments … but if there were no consensus, then I would back the continued functioning of the institutions, meaning extension,” Berri, whose remarks were published in al-Joumhouria daily on Wednesday, told his visitors in Ain el-Tineh.

The Free Patriotic Movement has reportedly made an initiative to resolve the dispute on the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials as the cabinet, which is set to discuss the matter this week, is expected to fail to appoint a new miltiary chief of staff.

An Nahar daily said Monday that the proposal was made by FPM chief MP Michel Aoun during his meeting with Defense Minister Samir Moqbel last week.

Iran's Ambassador to Beirut Mohammed Fathali has stressed that it was up to Lebanon's rival leaders to resolve the country's presidential deadlock.

“This is an internal Lebanese issue,” the diplomat told al-Akhbar newspaper in an interview published on Friday.