Senior officials have expressed their readiness to comply with international demands to aid the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat Sunday.

They voiced their readiness to establish “institutional foundations with full privileges” that would be capable of managing the aid as requested by the United Nations Security Council earlier this week.

Efforts to form a new government are seeming more complicated with Speaker Nabih Berri halting his initiative aimed at ending the deadlock, said the daily An Nahar Sunday.

Sources monitoring the formation process revealed that Hizbullah had urged the speaker to halt the initiative without explaining the reasons for it.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun said Saturday that the “strategic understanding” with the resistance hasn't changed despite disagreements on local issues, adding the FPM and Hizbullah would have similar stances on their participation in the new government.

“The strategic understanding with the resistance will not change but there are some local issues that there should be leniency in dealing with,” Aoun told Hizbullah's al-Nour radio in an interview.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and al-Mustaqbal movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri have recently had “indirect contacts,” FPM sources confirmed on Saturday.

The sources also confirmed reports about ties between Rabieh and al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc chief MP Fouad Saniora.

Meetings expected to be held by the country's top leaders on the sidelines of an Iftar banquet at Baabda palace next Tuesday are expected to facilitate the cabinet formation process, ministerial sources said.

Sources said on Saturday that President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, Caretaker Premier Najib Miqati and Premier-designate Tammam Salam are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Iftar.

Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam said Saturday that he hasn't yet reached the stage of giving up the formation of the new government, adding there was still a possibility to put together a cabinet.

In remarks to As Safir daily, Salam said: “The Lebanese want the formation of the government and do not care about conditions and counter-conditions.”

A man who hails from the northern city of Tripoli has been killed while fighting alongside the armed Syrian opposition against forces loyal to the regime.

“Gunfire was heard in Tripoli during a prayer for the dead for Ahmed Zaki Mansour,” LBCI television reported, adding that "Moamen Kahil, a minor, was wounded in the back by a stray bullet" from the shooting.

Head of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora on Friday voiced concern that clashes might renew in the southern city of Sidon because of the presence of weapons in the hands of non-state actors.

Saniora voiced his remarks from Abra, a Sidon suburb that witnessed deadly fierce clashes last month between army troops and gunmen loyal to anti-Hizbullah Islamist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour called on Friday for filing a complaint with the United Nations Security Council over Israel's violations of the border and its kidnapping of Lebanese nationals.

The complaint comes after a 15-member Israeli commando forces crossed on Monday the border of the occupied Shebaa Farms in the South, and abducted Lebanese shepherd Youssef Hussein Rhayyel.

A Nigerian court on Friday denied bail to three Lebanese charged with "terrorism" over their alleged links to Hizbullah.

Mustapha Fawaz, 49, Abdallah Thahini, 48, and Talal Ahmad Roda, 51, were charged last month after a massive supply of weapons was found at a business in the capital Abuja and a private home in the northern city of Kano.