Lebanon’s interest lies in “respecting U.N. resolutions and avoiding selectivity in their implementation,” Premier Najib Miqati said in New York, where he arrived Sunday for a several-day visit during which he would chair Security Council meetings and hold talks with top U.N. officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“We must regard Lebanon’s interest as a priority and I don’t believe that any faithful Lebanese can be against their country’s interest,” Miqati added, when asked by reporters about the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara, who is on a three-day tour to the South, said Sunday that Lebanon cannot overstep the U.N. and the Security Council, in reference to resolutions issued by the world body.

In his sermon at the Sayyida church in Hasbaya, al-Rahi said: “Lebanon is going through a difficult and sensitive stage.”

The Buqayaa smugglers' market on Lebanon's border with Syria, once a hive of shoppers, has become a ghost street since the uprising there, with most shops closed and not a customer in sight.

The once flourishing smuggling operations that supplied the souk have all but halted as Syria boosts security at the border as part of its crackdown on more than six months of anti-regime protests, in which thousands of Syrians have fled violence at home to seek refuge in Lebanon.

March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soaid has hinted that the meetings of Maronite political leaders in Bkirki consolidate “the confederation of confessions.”

In remarks to al-Mustaqbal daily published Sunday, Soaid said the meetings held at the seat of the Maronite church have no interest in showing sects as political spheres that inform other confessions about their decisions.

The trip of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to the U.S. will be limited to a visit to the Lebanese community there after the prelate held onto his stances made in France, Ad-Diyar daily reported Sunday.

The newspaper said that al-Rahi will not meet with top U.S. officials in Washington after he told U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly that he held onto his remarks on Hizbullah’s arms and the situation in Syria.

An Israeli commando force helped a top Hizbullah official escape to Israel a month ago, An Nahar said Sunday under the daily's 'Secrets of the Gods' tidbit but without saying that he is a member of the Shiite party.

“Abou Abed Ismail’s rank is similar to a Minister of Infrastructure in his party,” it said without mentioning Hizbullah. “The commando force helped him escape from Lebanon a month ago after meeting him at a border village.”

The opposition has described Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea’s words on Saturday as “brave” and a “March 14 speech par excellence.”

March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid told An Nahar daily on Sunday that through the presence of former Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir in the commemoration of the fallen members of the party, the “LF is now in the stage that characterizes the moral and political responsibility taken by the LF and the Maronite church to move Lebanon from civil war to civil peace in 1989.”

Grand imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb condemned on Saturday the position of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Christians in the East.

“The Christians in the east are part of the national fabric in the states,” al-Tayeb said during a meeting with Lebanese Ambassador to Egypt Khaled Ziade.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stressed on Saturday that the Syrian regime will surpass the crisis, urging “friends” to support it to implement reforms.

“I am sure that the Syrian leadership will pass the crisis by implementing reforms and the peoples’ demands,” Mansour said after a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem in New York.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Saturday urged Hizbullah to take a bold decision and hand in their weapons to the state after they fulfilled their role in the year 2000, stressing that the fear of extremism does not justify the crimes of dictatorships that created it in the first place.

“Some of you might think that Hizbullah’s arms protect and strengthens you, but you have missed that our protection can only be achieved through the Lebanese state,” Geagea said in a speech commemorating fallen members of his party.