Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that power-sharing between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon would not change under any circumstance, An Nahar daily reported on Tuesday.

“There is no going back from the concept of power-sharing,” Berri reportedly said during the national dialogue session in response to a recent warning made by President Michel Suleiman.

Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat has reportedly asked Christian political leaders to stop Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi from visiting the Holy Land despite the insistence of the cardinal that he was backing the Palestinian cause.

Al-Liwaa newspaper said Tuesday that Jumblat made the appeal during the national dialogue session that was chaired by President Michel Suleiman at Baabda Palace a day earlier.

President Michel Suleiman chaired on Monday a largely-boycotted national dialogue session, which called for continued talks on the country's defense strategy and stressed the importance of the implementation of the Taef accord.

The meeting was the last before his term expires on May 25.

Kataeb party leader Amin Gemayel is expected on Monday to officially announce his candidacy for the presidency, al-Liwaa newspaper reported.

The daily said that the announcement would be made after the weekly meeting of the party's politburo at its headquarters in Saifi and following planned talks with Metn MP Michel al-Murr.

President Michel Suleiman on Sunday called for turning the May 7 presidential vote into an “opportunity for accord and dialogue, unlike what happened on May 7, 2008,” warning against “dragging the country into a constituent assembly.”

“As the end of my term approaches, the worrying possibilities are surfacing. Why should every power rotation opportunity be turned into an occasion for fear over vacuum and the unknown fate?” Suleiman said in a speech he delivered at the inauguration ceremony of the Michel Suleiman Sports Village in Jbeil.

Kataeb party leader Amin Gemayel said his candidacy for the presidency would only become real if lawmakers failed to elect Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, revealing his ambition to become a consensual candidate.

“If the March 14 alliance … was able to break the barricade that surrounds Geagea, then it would reach its objective,” Gemayel told the Saudi Okaz daily published on Sunday.

President Michel Suleiman is expected on Sunday to reiterate his warning from the dangers of a vacuum in the country's top Christian post and call on lawmakers to elect a new head of state before the end of his term this month.

An Nahar newspaper said that Suleiman's warning will come in a speech he will make on Sunday afternoon during the inauguration of the cite sportive in his hometown in Amsheet.

President Michel Suleiman requested that General Prosecutor Judge Samir Hammoud explain to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon the country's commitment to freedom of the media.

He requested that he explain the extent to which Lebanon respects laws on the freedom of the media.

President Michel Suleiman on Friday appealed for the election of a “made in Lebanon” head of state, rejected foreign interference in the presidential elections and called the boycott of the polls “undemocratic.”

“The presidential and parliamentary elections should be held on time and vacuum avoided,” Suleiman told Lebanese diplomats at Baabda Palace.

The March 8 alliance is divided on the candidacy of Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun for the presidency, the Kuwaiti al-Anba daily reported on Friday.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that some March 8 members, including Hizbullah, are hoping Aoun would decide to give up his bid for the presidency.