General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has called for providing the country’s security agencies with their needs for being the reason behind the relative stability that Lebanon is enjoying.

“It is enough to carry out a quick comparison between the security situation here and in the region to find out the importance of the work carried out by the agencies,” Ibrahim told As Safir daily published on Monday.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has expressed regret that the controversy on the State Security agency has turned into a sectarian dispute among cabinet ministers, urging Christian parties to push for the election of a new president.

Salam said in remarks published in several dailies on Monday that the article on State Security is on the agenda of a cabinet session that will be held Tuesday.

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed hope Sunday that Lebanon's long-running presidential vacuum will see an end soon, as he called for a “Saudi-Iranian” reconciliation aimed at pacifying the situation in the region.

“We in Lebanon have started to see a light at the end of the tunnel on the possibility that the Lebanese parties will be able to elect a president soon,” Berri told the 23rd conference of the Arab Inter-parliamentary Union at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

The Airport Security Apparatus has arrested two Lebanese airport employees on charges of “communicating with terrorist groups,” state-run National News Agency said on Sunday.

The two employees were apprehended “two days ago,” NNA said.

Lebanese Democratic Party chief MP Talal Arslan visited Prime Minister Tammam Salam on Sunday along with a delegation from Choueifat and told the premier that the town's residents are opposed to the establishment of a garbage landfill in the Costa Brava area.

The delegation comprised Choueifat municipal chief Melhem al-Souqi, municipality members, the town's mayors and representatives of political parties and civil society groups.

When Saada Khalaf, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, lost her husband to a long illness earlier this year, she could not find a place to bury him in the eastern Lebanese town where the couple had lived since they fled the civil war back home.

The nearest cemetery where she and her relatives were allowed to bury him was in the village of Dalhamiyeh, about 16 kilometers from the town of Bar Elias.

An exchange of gun fire erupted overnight on Sunday between a fugitive and anti-police theft in the northern Bekaa town of Brital, the National News Agency reported.

The fire occurred when anti-theft police raided the town and tried to ambush fugitive Ali Mohammed M., added NNA.

The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants said on Sunday that the numbers circulated in media outlets of Lebanese emigrants deported from the Gulf countries are exaggerated.

“The numbers of Lebanese emigrants spread in media outlets do not reflect the reality and are overstated,” said the Ministry in a statement.

The calls of Prime Minister Tammam Salam for the cabinet session on Tuesday have cleared the air of doubts following the latest heated session over the appointments of the members of the general-directorate of state security, An Nahar daily reported on Sunday.

The cabinet had convened on Thursday, but it was marred by the ongoing dispute over the state security agency. The possibility of holding another session was questionable.

A meeting between Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz has been set to take place in Istanbul next week, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported on Sunday.

Salam was informed by the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri that a meeting has been arranged with the Saudi King in Istanbul, the daily added.