Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn confirmed that smuggling operations are taking place along the border with Syria, admitting that it is “very difficult” to completely monitor the entire 330 kilometer-border, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

He told the daily: “The army is performing all it can to curb the illegal activity.”

Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun said a "Friends of Syria" conference that opens in Turkey on Sunday must back the arming of rebels.

"The Syrian National Council expresses the demands of the Syrian people," Ghalioun told the press. "We have repeatedly called for the arming of the Free Syrian Army.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea called on Saturday the national community and Arab countries to sponsor a “sincere” referendum in Syria as “ending the revolution would be an illusion,” reiterating that safeguarding the Christians in the region isn’t by “throwing them in the hands of repressive regimes.”

“There will be many difficulties and obstacles ahead of us… but these difficulties will not deter us from reaching our goals,” Geagea said during a rally at Biel in Downtown Beirut.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Saturday that freedom can’t be divisible neither in Palestine nor in Syria.

“Freedom and dignity can’t be divisible, injustice remains wrong,” Jumblat said.

Expectations are low of an international conference Sunday in Istanbul having much impact on the Syrian crisis, as discord among the so-called "Friends of Syria" outweighs their agreements.

More than 70 representatives from Western and Arab countries will gather to craft a solution aimed at halting the killing in Syria, after more than a year that has left between 9,000 and 10,000 people dead in a crackdown on dissent by Bashar Assad's regime.

Violence across Syria killed at least 25people on Saturday as security forces fired at a Damascus funeral for protesters who died the previous day during demonstrations, monitors said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a child was killed on Saturday by rocket fire in the Bayada area of Homs, where troops fired shells at rebels in its Khaldiyeh district at the rate of one a minute.

Syrian authorities foiled an attempt by an “armed terrorist group” to infiltrate from Lebanon into Syria, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA said.

According to the news agency, a number of the “terrorist group” members were killed and injured during clashes with the Syrian forces as the others fled back into Lebanese territories.

Israel's U.N. ambassador said Friday that his government has made no decision yet on whether it will attend a proposed international conference on a nuclear weapons free Middle East.

But the envoy, Ron Prosor, insisted there could be no accord on a weapons free zone until there is a "comprehensive peace" in the region.

The bid to overthrow Syria's government is over, and the battle now is to secure stability, foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi said in a report by state media on Saturday.

"The battle to topple the state is over, and the battle to solidify stability... and move on towards a renewed Syria has begun," Makdisi was cited as saying by the official SANA news agency.

President Michel Suleiman hailed the government for going back on track after approving plans to resolve the electricity crisis and calling for an audit on the 2006-2010 extra-budgetary spending.

“We could say that the cabinet’s productivity is on the right track…amid lack of tension” between its different members, Suleiman told As Safir daily published Saturday.