Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas on Thursday said that the cabinet’s rejection on Wednesday of his wage increase plan was “purely political,” describing the Change and Reform bloc’s partners in the government as “an octopus seeking … to defend its personal interests.”

“Yesterday’s decision to reject our plan was purely political because it sided with the approach of counting on outside forces and appeasing certain parties and ambassadors,” Nahhas told OTV.

Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan, accompanied by a religious Druze delegation, on Thursday held talks in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Addressing the Lebanese delegation, Assad said that “Syria is strong thanks to its people and the support of the brotherly and friendly people,” according to Syria’s state news agency SANA, stressing that “Syria is capable of overcoming the current events and that it won't ever give up its stances, principles and sovereignty whatever the pressures may be.”

Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon “should have followed the constitutional path in Lebanon,” noting that “no one would have opposed it in that case.”

In an interview with Al-Afkar weekly to be published Friday, Berri emphasized that the court “is still unconstitutional because neither the president nor the parliament have ratified it.”

The Syndical Coordination Committee called for a strike on December 15 to protest against the government’s wage hike decree.

It also urged public administrations to take part in a protest that it will stage on the same day.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stressed on Thursday that Lebanon is an active member of the international community and the Arab world.

He said after holding talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Azarov: “No one can isolate Lebanon and it will not be isolated from the international and Arab communities.”

President Michel Suleiman travelled to Armenia on Thursday on a three-day official visit that will include the signature of several cooperation agreements.

Suleiman left Rafik Hariri international airport along with First Lady Wafaa and a delegation of ministers and MPs on Thursday morning.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman reportedly said that Hizbullah would resort to violence whenever it dislikes a certain situation.

“Hizbullah is a terrorist organization that participated in the elections,” Feltman told the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Thursday.

The controversial wage hike proposal, which was approved by the majority of the cabinet on Wednesday, had the support of Industry Minister Vrej Sabounjian, a member of the Change and Reform bloc led by MP Michel Aoun, and Hizbullah ministers Mohammed Fneish and Hussein Hajj Hassan.

“The data introduced by (Premier Najib) Miqati were convincing,” Tashnag party minister Sabounjian told As Safir newspaper on Thursday to justify his support for the PM’s proposal rather than the decree introduced by Change and Reform’s Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas.

Baabda Palace has reportedly snubbed visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman after the failure of President Michel Suleiman to meet with any U.S. official during his visit to New York in September.

An Nahar daily said Thursday that the presidential palace did not set a date for talks between Suleiman and Feltman as a retaliation to the failure to hold any meeting between the Lebanese head of a state and U.S. officials on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Free Patriotic Movement ministers have blasted Premier Najib Miqati for proposing an alternative to Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas’ decree on the wage boost for private and public sector employees.

“The formula approved by the council of ministers is not in favor of the workers,” Nahhas told As Safir newspaper on Thursday, a day after the cabinet approved Miqati’s proposal.