Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat denied that he has asked to meet with Syria President Bashar Assad although informed sources said that Damascus froze its ties with the PSP chief.

In remarks to reporters on Tuesday, Jumblat said he hasn’t asked for a meeting with Assad or Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s ministerial council voiced its full support for Lebanon’s stability, unity, and security, reported the daily al-Liwaa on Monday.

It hoped during its meeting in Jeddah Sunday that Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s government would succeed in achieving the stability that the Lebanese people aspire for.

Speaker Nabih Berri encouraged a military and a political strike against Hizbullah during the 2006 war so that the Israeli aggression against Lebanon doesn’t last long and so that the operation doesn’t have any repercussions, revealed a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper on Monday.

The WikiLeaks cable dated August 18, 2006, reported about a meeting between the speaker and then U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman during which Berri described Syrian President Bashar Assad’s speech on Aug. 15, 2006 as “stupid and unreasonable… because people forgot everything related to Israel.”

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas meets on Tuesday the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, in Doha as Washington presses the Palestinians to abandon plans to bid from UN membership next month, an Arab diplomat said.

The meeting will take place as several Arab foreign ministers convene after a request by the Palestinian Authority "to maintain cohesion in the Arab stand," the diplomat told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Tawhid movement chief Wiam Wahhab urged President Michel Suleiman on Saturday to instruct involved ministries to resolve the extended U.S. decision to freeze his assets.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama extended a freeze of assets on persons, including Wahhab, threatening stability in Lebanon, targeting those seeking "to undermine Lebanon's legitimate and democratically elected government."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said that he had been informed that a search is underway for the four suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case.

In an interview with al-Hurra TV, Feltman said that the search for the four Hizbullah members against whom arrest warrants were issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was “the responsibility of the Lebanese government.”

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman denied media reports that he was intending to visit Beirut soon to pressure Lebanese authorities into complying with international resolutions.

Media reports had said that Feltman’s visit was aimed at pushing the Lebanese government towards committing itself to the resolutions on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and cooperate with the court.

An American administration official may visit Beirut next week in order to hold talks with Lebanese officials to determine the United States’ position on the new cabinet, reported the Central News Agency on Thursday.

The official, likely to be U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffery Feltman, will hold talks with President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati and a number of other figures.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun criticized on Tuesday the opposition’s attack on the new government, labeling it as “rude” because a new cabinet should be granted a 100-day grace period.

He said after the movement’s weekly meeting: “They didn’t appreciate our ‘one way ticket’ joke. A new ward is being prepared for them in Roumieh prison and they will be granted a ‘one way in’ ticket for it.”

The U.S. is upping pressure on Lebanon to reduce its ties to Syria and is warning Lebanese officials that they risk being isolated, diplomats and officials told the Los Angeles Times.

A Western diplomat and Lebanese officials said that during his visit to Beirut last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman bluntly warned Lebanese officials that the tide had turned against Syria’s Assad regime and urged them to distance themselves from it.