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.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday, might ask Tehran’s allies in Lebanon to consider ending their support for Suleiman Franjieh’s presidential nomination, media reports said.

While some believe that Abdollahian will throw his support behind the allies in their backing of Franjieh, others believe that the Iranian FM will ask allies to “start considering the possibility of ending their support for Franjieh if it is facing unworkable obstacles,” political sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat is still refusing to brush aside Christian forces’ rejection of Suleiman Franjieh’s presidential nomination, political sources said.

Jumblat is insisting on his stance for a “key consideration, which is that these blocs are essential partners in the Mount Lebanon Reconciliation” that was reached in the year 2000 between Druze and Christians, “and accordingly he does not want to endorse a settlement that would impose a president rejected by Christians, a move that might have major repercussions in Mount Lebanon,” the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.