Speaker Nabih Berri has reiterated that he would facilitate the adoption of the government's policy statement if the March 14 alliance showed some leniency amid a lack of optimism on the ability of a seven-member committee to reach a deal on the blueprint on Friday despite efforts to find a compromise on the controversial issue of the resistance.

“There is so far nothing tangible,” several officials, who visited Berri on Thursday, quoted him as saying.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq's remarks from Rabieh caused a stir among the March 14 allies over the rapprochement between the al-Mustaqbal movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, local newspapers reported on Friday.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and leaders affiliated in the March 14 coalition expressed ire over Mashnouq's statement, prompting al-Mustaqbal movement leader Saad Hariri to contact Geagea to explain the matter.

Senior officials discussed a controversial decision enforced by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq to shut down two centers of filling gas canisters in Beirut's southern suburbs.

According to al-Liwaa newspaper published on Thursday, ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri contacted high-ranking officials to address the matter and resolve the repercussions caused by the shutting down of the two companies.

High-level contacts between the rival March 8 and 14 alliances failed to end the deadlock on the government's policy statement as both sides accused each other of not making enough concessions, local dailies reported Wednesday.

Al-Joumhouria newspaper said that top officials from both camps tried on Tuesday in vain to find an exit to the impasse, which lies on the resistance clause.

A controversial parliamentary session that includes 45 items on its agenda was postponed on Tuesday for the 10th time over lack of quorum.

Speaker Nabih Berri postponed the session without setting an upcoming date.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that the resistance is a red line but was ready to make proposals to resolve the dispute on the government's policy statement on condition that the rival parties expressed readiness to agree on a solution on the resistance clause.

Several local dailies quoted Berri as saying on Monday that he would never give up on mentioning the resistance in the policy statement.

Lebanon's participation in a meeting between Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian lawmakers, ahead of a meeting for the International Parliamentary Union, is expected to create a dispute among the political arch-foes, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Monday.

According to the daily, the preparatory meeting between the four countries on March 10 in the Iranian capital, Tehran, will become a point of contention locally as it would be representing a particular international axis that contradicts the dissociation policy that the Lebanese government had adopted.

The alleged plot to assassinate Speaker Nabih Berri aims at destabilizing the country and inciting a Sunni-Shiite strife, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Sunday.

AMAL Movement, Development and Liberation bloc, MP Ali Khreis told the daily that Berri's assassination bid aims at causing chaos in Lebanon and creating a Sunni-Shiite strife.

Investigations with detained extremists revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri was allegedly the target of an assassination bid, local newspapers reported on Friday.

According to As Safir and al-Akhbar newspapers, Lebanese national Mahmoud Abou Aalfa, who is affiliated to the Qaida-linked Abdulllah Azzam Brigades, confessed that the extremist group was plotting to assassinate Berri, who is the head of the AMAL movement.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Friday that he would not give up or make compromises on the “Resistance” word in the government's policy statement.

“I will not give up or reach a settlement on any single letter of (the resistance) letters,” Berri said in remarks published in As Safir newspaper after President Michel Suleiman and the March 14 alliance's cabinet ministers backed the Baabda Declaration as the basis of the policy statement.