Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated during the new government’s first session that it “will work for the whole of Lebanon and all Lebanese without discrimination or spite,” Information Minister Walid al-Daouq quoted him as saying.

He said in a statement after the session: “Lebanon is the victor and we cannot ignore the sacrifices that were made, especially that of Speaker Nabih Berri who asserted Sunni-Shiite unity, preventing strife from coming between them.”

President Michel Suleiman stressed during the new cabinet’s first session that the government was formed with a Lebanese agenda and without foreign meddling, Information Minister Walid al-Daouq quoted him as saying.

Suleiman added: “Syria didn’t interfere and this is what we ask for.”

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat have stressed the importance of close cooperation between the different members of the cabinet to guarantee its success.

A statement released by Hizbullah’s press office on Wednesday said that Nasrallah held talks with Jumblat, who was accompanied by Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi, along with the presence of Hizbullah official Wafiq Safa.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Wednesday that his priority was to consolidate security and strengthen ties of confidence between the Internal Security Forces and the citizens.

“I am a minister for all of Lebanon and with the presidency in general,” Charbel stressed to Voice of Lebanon radio station.

The new government may witness a series of internal disputes that may lead to hindering its functioning given that President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati will attempt to thwart any attempts by Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun to take the government off its course, informed sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published on Wednesday.

Such attempts may include him taking spiteful actions against his political rivals, especially the Mustaqbal and March 14 movements, they added.

Premier Najib Miqati’s new cabinet held its first session at Baabda palace on Wednesday in the absence of Talal Arslan who had announced his resignation to protest the state ministry post allotted to him.

President Michel Suleiman chaired the meeting at 10:30 am. Miqati and the remaining 28 members of the cabinet attended. Arslan announced his resignation hours after the government was formed on Monday. He was demanding a cabinet portfolio.

The new cabinet’s policy statement is expected to remain committed to some of the major clauses of Saad Hariri’s ministerial statement including the right of "Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance" to liberate all Lebanese territory.

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that Najib Miqati’s new cabinet would also commit itself to international resolutions and the protocol signed between the Lebanese government and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that will try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins.

Hizbullah began shifting the long- and medium-range rockets it had allegedly stored in northern Lebanon to locations in the center of the country, the Israeli Debkafile website reported.

Western military sources told the website that “Hizbullah was taking the precaution of keeping its arsenal safe from a spillover of violence from Syria.”

Speaker Nabih Berri stated on Wednesday that violating norms for the sake of national interests is more important than actually respecting these norms.

He said this in reference to granting Sunnis seven ministers in cabinet while Shiites were granted five when in the past each sect was represented by six members.

A man who identified himself as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army has told Agence France Presse that he had seen “Iranian and Hizbullah snipers” in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.

"I remember well in Damascus, in the Saqba district, I saw people demonstrating” and “with my own eyes I saw snipers positioned on upper floors, Iranian and Hizbullah snipers who fired on the crowd," Hussein Harmoush told AFP, when asked about the presence of Iranian soldiers or Hizbullah warriors fighting alongside the Syrian army, as recently reported by many witnesses.