Hizbullah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem accused the March 14 forces on Tuesday of acting in a way that serves the U.S.-Israeli project.

“I don’t like to mention much what the March 14 group is doing as a conspiracy,” Qassem told Iran’s Fars news agency. “But it acts in a way that whether willingly or unwillingly serves the Israeli-American project.”

The Palestinians will not be able to secure a Security Council majority in favor of their bid to become a United Nations member state, Israel's cabinet secretary Tzvi Hauser predicted on Tuesday.

Speaking on Israeli military radio, Hauser said the Palestinians would fail to obtain the nine yes votes they need to keep alive their hopes of becoming a member state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said on Tuesday that Lebanon has no choice but to pay its share of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon funds.

“Lebanon has commitments … I think it would implement its commitments towards the tribunal,” Williams told al-Joumhouria daily. He said the Lebanese government would pay its dues because it “has no other choice.”

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour is expected to meet with his Cypriot counterpart Markos Kyprianou ahead of the U.N. General Assembly opening Wednesday in New York.

“Mansour had clear directions from President Michel Suleiman to meet his Cypriot counterpart,” a diplomatic source told As Safir newspaper.

President Michel Suleiman has put Israel’s infringement on 870 kilometers of Lebanese waters at the top of the agenda of his talks with world leaders in New York, including U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, Lebanese diplomatic sources said.

Suleiman is in New York to participate in the annual General Assembly meeting. He is scheduled to attend a Security Council session on Libya on Tuesday and address the Assembly the next day.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his U.S. counterpart Leon Panetta met Monday at the Pentagon to discuss political changes in the region ahead of the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations.

At the second Pentagon meeting for the two defense leaders since Panetta became Defense Secretary in July "Panetta and Barak each stressed the importance of the close security ties that bind the two nations, including America's continued commitment to ensuring Israel's qualitative military edge," Douglas Wilson, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here on Monday urged Turkey to defuse tension and repair strategic ties with Israel as Washington values them both as allies, U.S. officials said.

Washington has expressed mounting concern about the bitter row between Turkey and Israel over a May 2010 Israeli commando raid on an aid flotilla heading to the Gaza Strip that left nine Turks dead.

Members of the Palestinian parliament in exile met in Ramallah on Monday to show support for the campaign to seek full membership in the United Nations, a senior official said.

Some 50 members of the Palestinian National Council, which has 669 seats and represents Palestinians worldwide, met at al-Amari refugee camp.

Israel said on Monday it was withdrawing its police representative from Turkey and ending bilateral cooperation between their forces as the diplomatic crisis between the two former allies deepened.

"Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has ordered the transfer to Bucharest of the Israel Police representative in Ankara," ministry spokesman Tal Volovich told Agence France Presse.

Mahmud Abbas said on Monday he expects a "very difficult" situation after he seeks U.N. membership for a Palestinian state this week, in a move strongly opposed by Israel and the United States.

The Palestinian president made the remarks as he arrived in New York, where world powers were meeting in an 11th-hour attempt to head off the membership bid and avoid a diplomatic showdown at the United Nations.