Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed the importance of dialogue and moderation to combat the terrorism of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), local newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Hariri's statement came during a meeting for the leaders and members of al-Mustaqbal movement at the Center House in downtown Beirut on Monday night.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has said that he received French assurances that Paris is continuing to exert efforts to end Lebanon’s presidential deadlock.

He told As Safir daily on Wednesday that he held around 14 meetings with Arab and Western officials in Germany last week “to prove Lebanon's presence on the international scene and shed light on the problems that it is suffering from.”

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq has called for a major step to protect the decisions reached by Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal officials and prove that the dialogue between them is credible.

“There is an urgent need for a huge step that proves the credibility of dialogue with foes and protects the achievements made so far,” al-Mashnouq told As Safir daily in remarks published on Wednesday.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that he would hold talks with Prime Minister Tammam Salam soon to discuss the decision-making mechanism adopted by the government to function in the absence of a president.

Berri told his visitors that the opening of an extraordinary session would also be on the agenda of their talks.

Lebanese Forces official Melhem Riachi stressed on Tuesday that dialogue with the Free Patriotic Movement is on the right track, pointing out that negotiations are based on fixed principles.

“The meetings will not be folkloric,” Riachi said in comments published in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq revealed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Tammam Salam is seeking to reach a new mechanism that organizes the work of his cabinet.

“Salam aims at giving ministers the right to veto decrees that are exceptional and non-controversial,” Mashnouq said in comments published in the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah newspaper.

Maronite Bishop Boulos Mattar stressed on Monday that linking the presidential election with the conflict in the region is a great mistake, hailing the dialogue between the political arch-foes.

“If Lebanon was a leading country in making culture... then how could it link its fate to that of other countries in the Middle East?” Mattar wondered in his sermon on the occasion of St. Maroun Day.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that he backed a proposal made by Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat to give Lebanon's presidential elections a wider patriotic aspect rather than limiting its discussion to Christians.

But in remarks published in several local newspapers on Monday, Berri stressed that no solution was looming in the horizon on the presidential deadlock.

Complications rose on the possibility of opening an extraordinary session for Parliament due to the bickering of blocs over the ongoing presidential vacuum and the absence of urgent draft-laws.

Deputy Speaker Farid Makari said in comments published in An Nahar newspaper on Friday that “a wide spectrum of Christian MPs are convinced that there is no necessity to open an extraordinary session for the parliament before the election of a new head of state.”

Kataeb Party chief Amin Gemayel Wednesday suggested an initiative to resolve the presidential void crisis in which he demanded supporting one of the top four Maronite leaders in order to elect a “strong and capable president.”

After meeting the Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault, Gemayel said that he “proposed an initiative based on consensus among all leaders over electing a strong and capable president.”