Premier-designate Najib Miqati has continued to hold onto his constitutional mission of forming the new cabinet as the March 14 forces began hinting that his “nomination’s status should change.”

Miqati’s visitors quoted him as saying that he would not make concessions on the authorities of the prime minister set in the constitution. “Mistaken are those who think that he would tolerate such a thing.”

Premier-designate Najib Miqati is expected to launch in the next few days a new round of consultations aimed at forming the new government in coordination with Speaker Nabih Berri, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and Hizbullah.

March 8 sources told An Nahar newspaper on Monday that Miqati would play an essential role in reviving the consultations that reached a standstill last week over allegedly growing demands by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected for the first time to address the situation in Syria during a speech on the occasion of Liberation Day on Wednesday.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, who along with Iran is Hizbullah’s main backer, is facing a nine-week uprising against his regime.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to take “immediate measures that could introduce radical change” to confront the challenges facing Syria.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “These changes will help fulfill the people’s legitimate demands and prevent Syria from falling victim to division.”

Speaker Nabih Berri slammed what he called the blatant meddling of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman in Lebanon’s internal affairs.

In remarks to As Safir daily on Monday, Berri stressed that he took the right decision not to hold talks with Feltman after he read the statement issued over the diplomat’s visit to Beirut on Friday.

Army troops managed Sunday to liberate three Iraqi nationals abducted on May 20 in the northern border town of al-Bqaiaa after a gunfight with the kidnappers in neighboring Wadi Khaled, the Army Command's Orientation Directorate said in a statement.

"After the army's intelligence directorate acquired information about the disappearance of three Iraqi citizens in the al-Bqaiaa area on May 20, the directorate conducted a series of investigations that led to locating them," the orientation directorate said in its statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday accused Hizbullah of exercising "political assassination," as he condemned Iran's support for "extremists" in the region.

Speaking at the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC Policy Conference, Obama pointed to Iranian "hypocrisy" in "claiming to support the rights of protesters" in the region "while treating its own people with brutality."

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said in his Sunday sermon that officials should be aware that God would hold them accountable if they were derelict in their duties and oppressed the people.

After celebrating mass in Bkirki, al-Rahi met with the visiting French deputy Senate leader, Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

Hizbullah MPs have said that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has informed President Michel Suleiman and Premier-designate Najib Miqati that the new cabinet should not be formed.

The MPs told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Sunday that Feltman carried a message to Suleiman and Miqati that the government “should not witness light.”

The March 8 forces have expressed pessimism at solving the cabinet deadlock soon, saying contacts between Premier-designate Najib Miqati and the different parties of the March 8 forces have been in a standstill since last Wednesday.

The circles of the new parliamentary majority told An Nahar daily published Sunday that although Miqati stayed in touch with Hizbullah and Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal movement, the different sides are not expected to meet with the premier-designate next week.