Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has denied that his latest stance from the March 8 forces and the cabinet formation impasse meant he had fallen out of the new parliamentary majority.

On Monday, Jumblat issued a stern warning to the March 8 coalition, accusing it of failing to form the new government. The Druze chief’s new stance was seen as a blunt attack on the Hizbullah-led alliance, but Jumblat stressed to An Nahar daily in remarks published Tuesday that his statement did not reflect a change in his policies.

Syria's embattled government has ridden out the worst of a roiling seven-week uprising, a senior official told The New York Times in an interview on Monday.

"I hope we are witnessing the end of the story," Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar Assad who often serves as a spokeswoman, told the U.S. paper in an hour long interview.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat slammed the new majority’s failure to form a new government, saying that the PSP and National Struggle Front can no longer cover up the vacuum it has caused.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “The new majority has failed miserably in forming a new government.”

U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford expressed his country’s concern about ties between Syria and Hizbullah and voiced alarm over reported transfers of arms to the Shiite party.

In an interview with Radio Sawa, the Arabic language radio station funded by the U.S. government, Ford said “the U.S. administration asked Syria to immediately stop its assistance to Hizbullah and to recognize the sovereignty of Lebanon on its territory as part of friendly ties” between the two countries.

Syrian authorities have stopped a U.N. humanitarian team from visiting the protest city of Daraa where hundreds are said to have been killed in a government crackdown, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.

"The U.N. humanitarian assessment mission has not been able to get into Daraa," U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem urged U.S. not to use Syria “as a hostage for the Lebanese situation or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” stressing that Damascus was ready to make a peace agreement with Israel.

In a WikiLeaks cable dated January 2, 2008, al-Muallem discussed with U.S. Senator Arlen Specter and U.S. official Patrick Kennedy the Syrian cooperation with France to seek a political solution in Lebanon.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant has said that Paris should congratulate itself for helping Lebanon and Syria establish diplomatic relations.

In an interview published by As Safir daily on Monday, Gueant said: “You know that France is attached to Lebanon for historical reasons. Talks (by France) with Damascus helped the formation of a Lebanese government and the election of a president.”

Speaker Nabih Berri has lamented that the Lebanese were watching the regional turmoil at a time when they are bickering on the interior ministry portfolio rather than speeding up the formation of the new cabinet.

Berri’s visitors told An Nahar and As Safir newspapers that the speaker wondered how Lebanese officials were still busy fighting on the portfolio amid dramatic developments in the region.

A 12-year-old boy was among several people killed Sunday as Syrian troops hunted down opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in two restive cities, activists said, despite world anger over the bloody crackdown.

The military said six troops, including three officers, were killed in clashes as the army pursued "armed terrorist groups" in Homs, Banias and around the southern town of Daraa -- three protest hubs.

The Syrian army has thwarted attempts by “armed men” to escape to Lebanon by land and sea, the Syrian al-Watan newspaper reported Sunday.

The daily said that the Syrian military was making strong efforts to “eradicate terrorist cells” in the country.