President Michel Suleiman held talks with Turkish leaders on Tuesday about the fate of the 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria two months ago.

"We told the Lebanese side that we will do our best to find the kidnapped pilgrims but our opportunities are also restricted," a diplomatic source told Agence France Presse after Suleiman's meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly held talks on Tuesday with Energy Minister Jebran Bassil on the energy sector in Lebanon, announced the U.S. Embassy in a statement.

The ambassador encouraged “the Ministry’s continued commitment to implement fair, transparent regulations to develop the energy and water sectors.”

March 14 alliance’s general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid accused Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun of staging Monday’s protests in Sarba to compensate the public loss in the northern Koura district by-elections.

“Several political parties led by the FPM are trying to show that there is a sect that supports the army and another that doesn’t… A sect with the oppressor and another with the oppressed,” Soaid told An Nahar newspaper on Tuesday.

The “chemistry” between Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement began dissipating over their differences on the status of Electricite du Liban’s contract workers, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said however that Hizbullah is exerting strong efforts to consolidate their ties out of its keenness on the government and to prevent its collapse.

The Syndicate Coordination Committee lashed out at Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Tuesday as it insisted on the premier to meet their demands if they should resume the correction of the official exams.

The public employees staged sit-ins at 10:00 a.m. near several public institutions in an attempt to pressure the cabinet to approve the new wages scale.

The al-Qaida terrorist network has offered a $300,000 reward for the assassination of Speaker Nabih Berri and Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji, al-Akhbar daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that al-Qaida members in Lebanon were offered by the network’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri $150,000 for killing Berri and another $150,000 for assassinating Qahwaji through a “missile ambush” of their motorcades.

North Lebanon's border with Syria was hit on Monday night by cross-border shelling following an exchange of gunfire, a security official told Agence France Presse.

This is the latest of a series of border incidents in recent weeks.

The relatives of the officers detained in the case of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed and a number of army supporters on Monday blocked the Sarba-Jounieh road near an army barracks, declaring that they will not leave before the release of the generals.

The military examining magistrate issued on Saturday arrest warrants against three army officers, who were released last week, in the case of the killing of Abdul Wahed and his companion at an army checkpoint in the Akkar town of al-Kweikhat in May.

A clash erupted on Monday outside EDL's building in Mar Mikhail between EDL contract workers and protesters condemning what they called “the occupation of public facilities.”

The Internal Security Forces formed a human wall to separate between the two sides who hurled stones at each other.

President Michel Suleiman is scheduled to travel Tuesday to Turkey in light of positive signals received by Lebanese officials about the case of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria, the Central News Agency reported on Monday.

Suleiman’s trip may carry “a happy surprise for the Lebanese in general and the abductees’ families in particular, knowing that the visitors of Baabda Palace have recently quoted President Suleiman as saying that he will not visit Turkey except after receiving confirmed information about the possibility of freeing them or setting a date for that,” well-informed sources told the agency.