President Michel Suleiman on Thursday announced that he will call for a national dialogue conference to be held in the second week of June, urging the March 14 forces to heed his call without linking it to the issue of forming a new government.

“Of course I will call for dialogue and I have already voiced several calls and informed the leaders of the topics: the defense strategy concerning when and how the Resistance's arms must be used; the implementation of the previous resolutions as to removing Palestinian arms outside camps and organizing them inside camps; and the removal of weapons from Lebanese cities and towns,” said Suleiman in an interview on LBC.

The March 14 forces on Thursday called for forming a “neutral, salvation government,” revealing that they will “very soon submit an initiative” to President Michel Suleiman that is “aimed at confronting the attempt to ruin Lebanon.”

“The Syrian regime wants to destroy the temple over everyone's heads and it is depicting Lebanon as an incubator of terrorism,” said a statement recited by former premier Fouad Saniora following an emergency meeting for the March 14 forces at the Center House in downtown Beirut.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi voiced on Thursday his support for the various calls for holding dialogue in Lebanon away from the threat of arms.

He said: “I do not support calls for the resignation of the government.”

Fed by the 14-month crisis in neighboring Syria and rumors of renewed civil unrest, turbulence across Lebanon is stoking fears the situation in the country may take a turn for the worse.

On Wednesday night, a gunbattle broke out in the Caracas district of west Beirut, followed by a clash that lasted several hours and left two dead, according to security officials.

The rebel Free Syrian Army said on Thursday it is making "every effort" to locate and release a group of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims kidnapped in Syria's northern province of Aleppo.

"The leadership is making every effort to find out where the abductees are, and to make sure they are freed," FSA official spokesman Colonel Qassem Saadeddine said in a statement.

Security officials from five African states have pledged to step up cooperation to control the flow of small arms after a U.N.-backed conference.

Ministers of interior and security from Libya, Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic, as well as a provincial governor from Democratic Republic of Congo, agreed to establish a joint body to counter the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

Iranian media on Thursday said the chances of tottering talks with world powers continuing after the current Baghdad negotiations are "very low," with several outlets saying Iran had essentially been handed Israeli demands.

A correspondent with Iran's al-Alam network reflecting the Iranian delegation's views in Baghdad said the so-called P5+1 -- the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany -- had to sweeten incentives for Iran to suspend parts of its disputed nuclear program for talks to go on.

A mortar attack in Baghdad killed one person and wounded six others on Thursday, in the second attack in the capital during key talks on Iran's nuclear program, security and medical officials said.

An interior ministry official said a mortar round struck a street in the Bataween area of central Baghdad, which lies across the Tigris River from the heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the talks between Iran and world powers pressing it to scale back its nuclear program are taking place.

Canada police arrested some 400 people in Montreal early on Thursday after demonstrators threw rocks at officers in the latest student protest to shake the city, a police spokesman said.

Several thousand demonstrators poured into Montreal's central square late Wednesday in an unsanctioned rally, defying a law passed last week requiring organizers to notify authorities eight hours ahead of public demonstrations.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad said on Thursday his government is capable of finding a way out of the crisis gripping his country, as he met with a visiting Iranian government minister.

"Syria has been able to overcome the pressures and threats it has faced for years and is able to get out of this crisis thanks to the strength of its people and commitment to unity and independence," Assad said, quoted by SANA state news agency.