Syrian President Bashar Assad said the election of President Michel Aoun for Lebanon's presidency is a victory for Syria as he stressed that Lebanon can not adopt a dissociation policy, Syrian al-Watan daily reported Thursday.

“The arrival of Aoun at Lebanon's presidency is a victory for Syria and for the axis of the Resistance, primarily when the president realizes that Lebanon can not be dissociated from the fires blazing around it and despite that adopt what has been named as the dissociation policy,” said Assad in an interview with the daily.

Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan said on Thursday that proportional representation together with the reforms proposed to the election law, are the serious solution for the regime's problems.

A Detroit-area man accused of trying to travel to the Middle East to fight in Syria's civil war has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Mohammad Hamdan has been in custody for nearly three years and will get credit for that time. He was sentenced Wednesday, about four months after pleading guilty to making false statements to agents.

After doubts that an assassination plot could be planned against him, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat pointed the finger at the Syrian regime saying it is the “primary suspect” behind such a plot, As Safir daily reported Thursday.

Jumblat said he believes that the “biggest winner who will benefit from my assassination is the Syrian regime which has grown stronger after the field developments on the battlefront in Syria,” he told the daily.

Despite the positive atmospheres that emerged in the past two days heralding a cabinet would be formed soon, sources close to Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri said the formation is likely to be delayed, media reports said Thursday.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity that discussions on the distribution of ministerial portfolios and shares in the new cabinet are not complete.

Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh held talks Wednesday with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri after which he defiantly announced that he “will not allow anyone to subjugate, penalize or curb the representation” of his movement.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, strongly condemned Wednesday the armed violence that took place in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon on December 5.

President Michel Aoun on Wednesday called for “immunizing national unity” and building “a just, strong and capable State.”

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Wednesday expressed his solidarity with “the Syrian people and the city of Aleppo” in the face of what he called “the policies of oppression and extermination.”

An army unit carried out a raid Wednesday in the eastern border town of Maaraboun where it arrested Lebanese national R. M. M. on suspicion of having ties to terrorist groups, state-run National News Agency reported.