The Lebanese Forces on Thursday said that it knows that “the election of the president can only occur through consensus.”

“But Hezbollah is asking us to choose between its candidate and vacuum, and we will maintain our stance until they back down from their stance,” LF spokesman Charles Jabbour told al-Jadeed TV.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat asked which Arab or international side would secure a safe return to the Syrian refugees, and if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants them back.

In an interview with MTV, Jumblat urged for the establishment of "decent camps" for the displaced Syrians in Lebanon.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday tasked acting General Security chief Brig. Gen. Elias Baissari with following up on the issue of returning the displaced Syrians to their country.

In the memo sent to Baissari, Mikati said that his decision is related to the ministerial meeting that was held on Wednesday, in which it was decided to take stricter measures in the file.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Thursday stressed that its chief Jebran Bassil does not have “any role or link to the Beirut port deal,” denying accusations in this regard by Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh.

“How can this happen in a ministry and file that the FPM has nothing to do with at all, and accordingly what can be hoped from a presidential candidate who launches false accusations against his political rivals other than his reinforcement of the impunity policy?” the FPM said in a statement.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri considered that France was just softening its stance, when it said in a statement that it doesn't support any presidential candidate.

"The statement does not necessarily deny" France's support to Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh, Berri told al-Akhbar, in remarks published Thursday.

Iran's foreign minister called on Lebanon Thursday to overcome political deadlock and elect a president, urging foreign governments not to interfere in the choice.

"We encourage all sides in Lebanon to expedite the election of a president," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a press conference, after he met with caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib in the capital Beirut.

Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh on Wednesday said that he prefers to wait for Saudi support for his presidential nomination.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Wednesday warned against any “violent expulsion” of Syrian refugees from Lebanon, amid an uproar over the army’s recent expulsion of dozens of Syrians from the country.

“The chaotic influx of displaced Syrians was a conspiracy that we confronted alone and expelling them through violence is a conspiracy that we will also confront,” Bassil said in a tweet.

Arab and Gulf nations have given France a deadline to try to break the presidential deadlock in Lebanon and the latest Qatari initiative was a “message” to Paris, an Arab diplomat informed on the Lebanese file said.

“Should Paris fail to secure the success of its initiative in the next few weeks, there will be a Gulf-Arab initiative, because there is insistence on ending the presidential vacuum in Lebanon,” the diplomat told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

On Wednesday, thousands of civilians fled from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, including Lebanese nationals.

Whether they had spent only a short time in Sudan or built lives there over many years, they all voiced concern for what would become of friends, family and colleagues who remain in the country.