Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday held talks with Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan, who has resigned from Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet to protest the ministry of state allotted to him.

Arslan, who was conditioning his particiatpin in the government on getting a portfolio, announced his resignation a few hours after the cabinet formation decree was issued last week.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem denied on Wednesday that Iran and Hizbullah were providing military support to Damascus, saying they were only backing it politically.

“There is a political support for Syria to overcome the crisis and there is support for the reforms that (President Bashar) Assad announced” on Tuesday, he said in a televised address.

The new government’s policy statement is expected to encompass nine pages, four of which will be dedicated to political issues, while the rest will tackle each ministry’s goals.

The committee drafting the statement held a meeting on Tuesday at the Grand Serail under Prime Minister Najib Miqati during which it finalized the issue of the equation of the army, people, and resistance.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat held talks Tuesday night at his Clemenceau residence with U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly on current political developments.

The meeting, which included a dinner banquet held in the guests’ honor, was attended by Minister of Transportation and Public Works Ghazi al-Aridi.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams expressed fears that the political dispute between the March 14-led opposition and the majority would lead to violence, stressing that Lebanon needs a responsible government and opposition.

“It’s a shame,” he said in an interview with As Safir newspaper on Wednesday.

Lebanese authorities have banned screening of the Iranian film "Green Days," which deals with protests against the 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an organizer said on Tuesday.

"We received a call yesterday from General Security informing us they had withdrawn the license allowing us to screen the film," Colette Naufal, organizer of the Beirut International Film Festival, told Agence France Presse.

Tripoli Mufti Sheikh Malek al-Shaar said he invited Premier Najib Miqati to a large-scale meeting that is scheduled to be held at the Dar al-Fatwa on Friday to study the necessary steps to declare the northern city free from arms.

Al-Shaar told An Nahar daily published Tuesday that his visit to Miqati was aimed at congratulating him on the formation of the cabinet and inviting him to the conference that will bring together Tripoli’s ministers, current and former MPs from the north, heads of municipalities and syndicates.

High-ranking opposition sources shrugged off the latest statements made by the premier and the Progressive Socialist Party chief over the Free Patriotic Movement leader’s verbal attacks.

“The final word is made by Syrian policies which are expressed by (FPM chief Michel) Aoun,” the sources told An Nahar daily published Wednesday.

Speaker Nabih Berri urged officials to speed up the drafting of the policy statement so that the government can make important decisions, An Nahar newspaper reported on Wednesday.

“PM (Najib) Miqati’s cabinet will not avenge or carry out any vexatious actions, but this stance doesn’t mean we will keep silence over theft and abuses in the ministries and institutions, because everyone should be under the law,” Berri said.

People affiliated with the deputy head of the Arab Democratic Party, Rifaat Eid, were behind the deadly clashes that erupted between Sunnis and Alawites in the northern port city of Tripoli last Friday, al-Mustaqbal daily reported.

The newspaper said Tuesday there is “tangible proof” that a group of men affiliated with Eid were behind the eruption of violence between Tripoli’s districts of Bab al-Tabbaneh that is mainly Sunni close to former Premier Saad Hariri and Jabal Mohsen whose residents are Alawites allied with Hizbullah and Syria.