Ziad Baroud has said that the settlement for the army to take over the second floor of a building affiliated with the telecommunications ministry did not mean that the crisis was solved.

Baroud, who relieved himself of his duties as caretaker interior minister last week, said that he doesn’t consider himself involved with the settlement because a solution to Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi’s rejection to abide his orders was not found yet.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday warned that “attempts by some people in Lebanon to settle political accounts with Syria represent a threat to Lebanon’s security and future.”

In a speech delivered by his representative, caretaker Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalife, at a ceremony in the southern town of al-Mseileh, Berri warned against “attempts to deviate attention in Lebanon towards the North instead of confronting the impending danger looming over Lebanon, Palestine and Syria due to Israel’s hostility on the southern front.”

Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat has informed the leadership of the Progressive Socialist Party that he cannot stand idly by in the face of the cabinet formation impasse, wondering whether he was supposed to believe that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun’s insistence on getting one or two portfolios was the real reason behind the delay, sources close to Jumblat said.

“An ordinary citizen would not believe that, so how is Jumblat supposed to believe it,” the sources told pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in remarks published Sunday.

President Michel Suleiman and caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, who on Thursday absolved himself from his duties at the ministry, are reportedly “inclined to refer Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi to a judicial inquiry for repeatedly disobeying their orders to pull out the ISF Intelligence Bureau personnel of the second floor of the building affiliated with the telecom ministry, where OGERO Telecom is in charge of the installations of the third mobile network donated by China to Lebanon according to a cabinet resolution.”

Sources following up on this issue told An Nahar daily in remarks published Sunday that state prosecutor Saeed Mirza has asked Suleiman and Baroud to “file a lawsuit so that the judiciary can act accordingly.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun denied on Saturday that he had insulted Sunnis, saying his political life was proof of his good ties with all Muslims.

A statement released by his press office, said that after the FPM chief denied reports about his alleged insult of the Sunni sect, the campaign by some clerics against the lawmaker continued.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in north Lebanon on Saturday to demand caretaker government release Syrian refugees who are reportedly being held by the army.

Some 500 people gathered in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood of Tripoli in the north to voice support for anti-government protesters in Syria and demand the release of any refugees who could be held in Lebanon.

Caretaker Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahhas refused to describe a decision for the Lebanese army to take control of a telecom building in Beirut’s Adliyeh area as a settlement.

“What happened is a victory of the logic of the state and the law and not (a victory) of a person or a party,” Nahhas told As Safir daily in remarks published Saturday.

The March 14 forces and Hizbullah have engaged in a war of words over the “militia practices” in the facility affiliated with the telecommunications ministry in Beirut’s Adliyeh area on Thursday.

The March 14 general-secretariat said in a statement on Saturday in reference to Hizbullah that “the militia” which turned its arms against the Lebanese during the May 7, 2008 events and carried out a “coup” against Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri’s government in January this year “does not have the right to accuse anyone of making a coup against the state and its institutions.”

A Kuwaiti citizen was released after he was kidnapped and blackmailed to pay 2 million dollars to the abductors, a communique issued overnight by the General Directorate of State Security said.

Mount Lebanon Regional Directorate guaranteed the release of Kuwaiti citizen Y. J. less than 48 hours after the abduction, said the communiqué. Without giving further details, it said the man was kidnapped on May 24 with the force of arm.

Diplomatic sources have hinted about Syria's involvement in the roadside bomb that ripped through a U.N. convoy in southern Lebanon on Friday after threats by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem that the European Union would regret its sanctions against President Bashar Assad.

The sources told An Nahar and al-Joumhouria dailies on Saturday that the bombing came after Muallem threatened that “Syria will not remain silent” to the EU measures against Assad.