Speaker Nabih Berri announced during his weekly meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday that the dispute over who should get the finance ministerial portfolio "can be resolved."

The Military Court of Appeals on Wednesday approved the release of Sheikh Bassam al-Tarras from prison, state-run National News Agency reported.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil announced, during a joint press conference with his Cypriot and Greek counterparts on Wednesday, that meetings on education, tourism, and friendship in Cyprus and Greece have been agreed.

“We are concerned with finding stable and promising investment climates," Bassil said following his meeting with Ministers Ioannis Kasoulides and Nikos Kotzias.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea assured on Wednesday that the Christian political parties will not be the ones who will hamper the formation of the new government, and that civil war will not erupt if the LF were not given the finance portfolio.

“The finance ministry portfolio is paramount in the government. There is a team in the Lebanese Forces that has been preparing for it more than any other portfolio, but there will be no civil war if we do not get it. I don't adhere to anything. The Christians will not be the ones who make the obstacles,” stressed Geagea in an interview to An Nahar daily.

The most difficult task facing PM-designate Saad Hariri in forming a new cabinet, is the agreement with the Lebanese Forces and Speaker Nabih Berri on the portfolios that will be allotted to their parties, As Safir daily reported on Wednesday.

Prominent Free Patriotic Movement sources told the daily that whenever an agreement was reached with the LF and Berri on their share in the government, “and when that happens, the General (President Michel Aoun) will facilitate Hariri's mission to complete the construction of the government because it is in the interest of the new term to accelerate the formation so it does not lose the presidential elections glow.”

The army thwarted an infiltration attempt by militants from the Syrian side into the outskirts of a town close to al-Khraybeh in the Bekaa region, the state-run National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The army was able to obstruct a group of militants after they tried to infiltrate into the outskirts of Jenta, other media reports said.

The Lebanese Forces stressed that they are not putting “crippling demands” on the government formation when they request to be given important ministerial portfolios, As Safir daily reported on Wednesday.

“Claims to be given essential portfolios in the new government does mean that the Lebanese Forces are setting crippling conditions and demands,” LF sources told As Safir daily on Wednesday.

The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc stressed Tuesday that no certain ministerial portfolio can be permanently allocated to a certain sect, in reference to Speaker Nabih Berri's insistence on keeping the finance portfolio with his AMAL Movement.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc of Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Tuesday urged all political parties to be “realistic” in their demands regarding the line-up of the new government.

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday reassured a delegation from the Association of Banks in Lebanon that there will be “no turning back” economically after “the general situation in the country witnessed a tangible improvement in the past two weeks.”