Speaker Nabih Berri slammed on Wednesday March 14 coalition MPs who have accused the Lebanese army of deploying in northern areas bordering Syria at the behest of the Assad regime.

“The army is carrying out the duties that its leader Gen. Jean Qahwaji has ordered,” Berri told An Nahar and As Safir dailies. “This is a patriotic institution that implements the government’s policy of distancing itself from the events in Syria.”

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has made changes in the positions of 83 third rank diplomats and vowed to make more modifications in other posts.

Mansour’s decision on Tuesday included bringing back 13 diplomats from missions abroad into the foreign ministry in Beirut. It also gave 52 diplomats posts in Lebanese missions in different countries in the world.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader Fouad Saniora revealed on Wednesday that he discussed with President Michel Suleiman a day earlier the controversial deployment of the Lebanese army in northern areas bordering Syria.

“We discussed a lot of issues, including the government (crisis), the situation in the region, the economy, the deployment of the army in the North, the security situation and (verbal) attacks on the president and the premier,” Saniora told An Nahar daily.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday stressed that “there will be no new government in Lebanon,” noting that contacts were underway to resolve a cabinet crisis that could force the collapse of Premier Najib Miqati’s government.

“We are keen on the survival of the government,” Nasrallah said in a televised address commemorating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, adding that the current cabinet was providing political stability and security during this period.

The Mustaqbal bloc condemned on Tuesday the government’s practices and the ongoing “struggle for power” among its members.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “Meddling with the delicate distribution of power that has been designated by the constitution will not solve the dispute.”

The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI may travel to Lebanon later this year.

The top Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, said Tuesday that Benedict was expected in Lebanon in September to present a document on the future of the church in the Middle East.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun criticized on Tuesday President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s practices, saying that they are violating the Change and Reform bloc ministers’ efforts to exercise the rights they have been granted by the constitution.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “Suleiman and Miqati are violating our rights in the administrative appointments.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Tuesday stressed that the “sweeping popular revolutions in several Arab countries, topped by Syria, do not need lecturing from anyone.”

“If only the Iranian ambassador (to Lebanon, Ghazanfar Roknabadi,) would disassociate himself from making statements about the Syrian crisis, he would perhaps help alleviate the Syrian people's suffering,” Jumblat said.

Syrian troops on Tuesday were seen planting more mines along the border with northern Lebanon, in an area close to the flashpoint central province of Homs, a Lebanese official said.

"Syrian army units for three days have been planting mines along the border area between the Syrian village of Bweet and the Lebanese village of Hnayder," the official from Hnayder said, requesting anonymity.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted on Tuesday that the current government deadlock is linked to some sides in cabinet that “have never been productive.”

He told Voice of Lebanon radio: “The deadlock is also linked to the crisis in Syria.”