Prime Minister Najib Miqati welcomed on Saturday Speaker Nabih Berri’s initiative for dialogue over the recent clashes that erupted in the northern port city of Tripoli.

“Dialogue is the only way to resolve the situation in the city,” sources close to Miqati told As Safir newspaper.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel stressed on Saturday that the Lebanese authorities didn’t find any evidence proof that al-Qaida exists in Lebanon.

“If anyone had any information then they should inform us about it in order to traxk down these groups,” Charbel told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Friday hit back at Syria over a letter sent by its permanent U.N. envoy Bashar al-Jaafari to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon about the presence of alleged anti-Syria “terrorists” in Lebanon.

Miqati stressed that “the Lebanese government is fully performing its duty as to combating any type of terror operations, and in monitoring the Lebanese border, controlling the security situation and addressing any security gaps.”

The Mustaqbal Movement on Friday described a letter sent by Syria to the U.N. about the presence of “terrorists” in Lebanon as “fabricated accusations aimed at diverting attention from the regime’s blatant crimes.”

“The Mustaqbal Movement categorically denies the content of the letter sent by Syria’s envoy to the U.N. Bashar al-Jaafari on behalf of his country to the United Nations and its secretary general Ban Ki-moon, in regard to accusing the Movement of harboring what he called ‘terrorist elements’ from the al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood organizations who are seeking to undermine Kofi Annan’s plan,” the movement said in a statement.

Shelling between the rival Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen on Friday left three people wounded, a security official and hospital sources told Agence France Presse.

The security official said at least four shells and grenades fell on the two districts in early evening.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri on Friday responded to Speaker Nabih Berri’s recent call for national dialogue, saying he welcomes “the principle of dialogue” but noting that it is “unacceptable” to turn dialogue over Hizbullah’s arms into dialogue over the latest unrest in Tripoli.

“We welcome the principle of dialogue and the call for dialogue; however, we remind that our permanent stance is: We were not the ones who withdrew from the national dialogue, and we demand its resumption on the bases that were agreed upon, and on the items that were included on its agenda,” said Hariri in a statement.

Colonel Riad al-Asaad, chief of the rebel Free Syrian Army, on Friday accused Arab Democratic Party official Rifaat Eid of “conspiring against the Lebanese state and inviting a foreign Arab army to occupy its North.”

“His remarks do not only disparage the Lebanese state’s prestige, but also the country’s dignity and the dignity of every Lebanese citizen, because Eid is neither a political analyst nor a media analyst, but rather the head of a licensed and armed Lebanese party,” said Asaad in a statement.

Some Lebanese areas near the Lebanese-Syrian border “have become an incubator for terrorist elements from the al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood organizations who are tampering with the security of Syria and its citizens,” Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement addressed to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

These elements “are seeking to undermine the six-point plan of U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan,” said the letter sent by Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Security Council.

President Michel Suleiman urged officials on Friday to resort to dialogue in order to resolve any dispute or problem.

He expressed relief for the adopted measures in the northern city of Tripoli, hoping that the tranquil security situation would remain in the city.

A gunman was killed and a soldier wounded when the army intercepted a car loaded with weapons on Thursday, announced the Army Command in a statement on Friday.

It said that a shootout, which took place at the border region of al-Qaa, erupted when a car failed to halt at an army checkpoint.