Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has suggested to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to announce Lebanon as a neutral country, Bkirki sources told the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily on Sunday.

The sources said that al-Rahi made the proposal during his visit to New York last month. He allegedly asked for U.N. assistance to achieve this objective which serves the stability of Lebanon and the region.

Syria’s former Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam has said that Lebanon would be liberated from Iran if Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime falls.

In remarks to An Nahar daily on the sidelines of a meeting in support of the Syrian revolution held in Paris, Khaddam said: “The Lebanese should be aware that Syria’s fate is linked to the fate of Lebanon.”

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said Sunday that Lebanon should improve its relations with the international community and rejected any deal that would divide the region.

“We should hold onto each other amid attempts to redraw the map of the world particularly in our Arab region,” Qabbani said in his Eid al-Adha sermon.

The spokesman of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights has hinted that several Syrian nationals have been wrongly accused by Lebanese authorities of involvement in arms trade.

Spokesman Nabil al-Halabi told An Nahar daily published Sunday that Syrian citizen Ammar Omar al-Adib, who was arrested by Hizbullah while he was visiting a friend in Beirut’s southern suburbs, was beaten while in police custody.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said on Saturday that the Syrian army infiltrations into Lebanese territories are due to the unclear demarcation of the border between the two countries.

“If we look closely at the map it shows that the border lines intersect,” Charbel said in a TV interview with the Lebanese Forces channel.

Internal Security forces thwarted an attempt to smuggle drugs into Roumieh prison on Saturday.

A Lebanese citizen F.A., 27-year-old, tried to smuggle drugs into Roumieh prison bloc B, a statement issued by the ISF said.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel said on Saturday that the March 14-led opposition supporters’ victory in the Students elections at Notre Dame University - Louaize (NDU) is a model of democracy and an achievement for Lebanon.

“This is additional evidence that the Lebanese youth know exactly what future they want for their kids,” Gemayel said during a meeting with a delegation from the Phalange party students at the NDU.

The army condemned on Saturday some media reports that said that army trucks had entered Syrian territory and some “foreign political powers’ interpretation of this development as a sign of the army’s interference in the ongoing events in Syria.

It said in a statement: “The Lebanese army trucks’ entry to Syrian territory is normal and it happens from time to time.”

Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas stated that the chances of resolving the dispute over wages are high if all sides are honest in their dealing with the file.

He told As Safir newspaper in remarks published on Saturday: “The deadline to resolve this issue is not open-ended and it should not exceed the end of November.”

The March 14 General Secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid stated that a government that provides cover to a group that is “attached” to the Syrian regime cannot provide the Lebanese people with security.

He told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published on Saturday: “The opposition is preparing to topple the Lebanese government.”