Prime Minister Najib Miqati has failed to bridge the gap between the cabinet’s centrist forces and mainly Hizbullah over the clause on the international tribunal in the policy statement, ministerial sources said.

The sources told al-Liwaa daily that consultations that Miqati held over the weekend away from the media spotlight failed to strike a deal between the two sides. The premier received a proposal from the Shiite party on the clause but the suggestion does not meet with Miqati’s own vision, the sources added.

The March 14-led opposition said Monday that this week would be decisive in terms of the majority’s effort to draft the cabinet policy statement amid reports that the indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination would be issued soon.

Opposition sources told An Nahar daily that differences between the majority’s different parties are not expected to last long because the pro-government forces will be compelled to draft the policy statement before the indictment’s release.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is expected to make a request to Lebanese authorities to question five Hizbullah members in the next few days after Lebanese judges traveled to The Hague ahead of the expected release of the indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case, informed sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Monday that the names of the five people would remain confidential for a short period.

Premier Najib Miqati does not intend to make any suggestion on the clause of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the draft policy statement before holding talks with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, al-Mustaqbal daily reported Friday.

The final decision on the controversial clause is awaiting a meeting between Miqati and Nasrallah, the newspaper said.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri slammed Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun saying the only people who would land in jail are the assassins of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“The only people whose fate is prison are the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and all the Cedar Revolution martyrs, and the mentally sick people who are protecting them,” Hariri’s press office said in a statement late Tuesday.

The Mustaqbal bloc condemned on Tuesday the statements of Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and those of the members of his bloc, saying that they demonstrate “the extent of their spite”.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “They unveil their vengeful intentions aimed at eliminating the other, which is an approach that has been created and perfected by Hizbullah in its political practices.”

Economy Minister Nicolas Nahhas on Sunday hit back at the head of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc, former premier Fouad Saniora, over the latter’s remarks in which he wondered whether Prime Minister Najib Miqati was designated as a premier to “eradicate” ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s legacy.

“I regret that these remarks were voiced by ex-PM Saniora, who knows PM Miqati quite well,” Nahhas, who is close to Miqati, said.

Al-Mustaqbal movement Secretary-General Ahmed Hariri confirmed that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s convoy was closely monitored after a report said that the Syrian regime was planning to assassinate him.

“The security caution taken by Hariri is very serious,” Ahmed Hariri told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Sunday.

Former chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of ordering the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri for allegedly seeking to topple his regime.

Mehlis said in an interview with the German radio Deutsche Welle on Thursday that Assad ordered Hariri’s Feb. 2005 killing after Damascus “suspected that he was seeking to topple the Syrian regime and disarm Hizbullah in cooperation with France and U.S.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati, who on Thursday entered the Grand Serail for the first time in six years, reiterated that his cabinet will not confront the international community.

“Lebanon is not in a confrontation with the Western community nor the international community,” Miqati told pan-Arab radio station Sawa.