Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said that the main elements in the new cabinet are Syria and Hizbullah, stressing that President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati have nothing to do with “this team.”

“They asked us to give this government a grace period and wait for the policy statement to be issued… but has anyone seen a cinchona tree turn into an apple tree?” Geagea wondered during the annual dinner of Free Lebanon radio on Monday.

The Phalange Party stressed on Monday the importance of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in putting an end to assassinations in Lebanon, saying that it is not aimed at seeking revenge.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “The STL seeks to achieve justice and stability in Lebanon.”

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.

Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a large-scale military operation on southern Lebanon if the security situation continues to deteriorate in the region.

“Hizbullah has turned most of the villages in southern Lebanon into explosive spots,” security sources told the Israeli radio.

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.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel on Sunday wondered “whether Prime Minister Najib Miqati will be able to reconcile between what he’s been saying regarding keenness on (Lebanon’s) international relations … and the objectives of Hizbullah, which had designated him” as premier.

In an interview on Al-Jadeed television, Gemayel added: “We have no problem with PM Miqati or with the ministers, but the government was formed for certain purposes: preserving (Hizbullah’s) weapons and abolishing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

Lebanon First MP Oqab Saqr stated that Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s admission that the party had been infiltrated by Israeli spies is a sign that there is no such thing as a “suitable atmosphere” for harboring such individuals.

He told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published on Sunday: “However, we can say that the Free Patriotic Movement does provide such conditions because it is going out of its way in defending an individual who has been proven to be a collaborator with Israel.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati and Speaker Nabih Berri are likely to reach an appropriate phrasing of the clause on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the government policy statement that would not “antagonize” the international community, a ministerial sources told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in remarks published on Sunday.

It added that Hizbullah would be able to “bear such a phrasing” until February 2012 when the cooperation agreement between Lebanon and the STL expires, which the new government will likely not renew.

Hizbullah is moving its arsenal from Syria over fears that the anti-Assad demonstrations would lead to regime change, a Western expert closely following up Iranian-Syrian ties told the French daily Le Figaro on Saturday.

The expert confirmed that Western intelligence had monitored the movement of trucks from the Syrian border to eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa valley.