Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday complained that “no progress has been made concerning the electoral law” under which the 2013 parliamentary polls will be held, blaming his Christian rivals, the Lebanese Forces and the Phalange Party, for the delay.

“I hold responsible those who are rejecting the laws proposed by the Orthodox Gathering and the government, because they are obstructing justice, especially the LF and the Phalange Party. Their stance is a commodity for sale and they are claiming to be defending the rights of Christians,” said Aoun after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc.

Turkey warned Syria again on Tuesday that it would not hesitate to retaliate for any strike on its soil as the country's top military commander visited troops stationed at the reinforced border.

"It has become inevitable for our armed forces to retaliate in kind... as the Syrian administration maintains its aggressive position," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

More than 2,000 Hizbullah supporters gathered in the Bekaa Valley on Monday to bury one of their fighters who a security source said was killed in the border area with Syria.

Hussein Abdul Ghani al-Nimr, 35, "died while he was performing his jihadist duty," said a Hizbullah spokesman from the eastern city of Baalbek.

Progressive Socialist Party Leader MP Walid Jumblat said on Monday that refraining from slashing the salaries of MPs, ministers and officials will only lead to deepening the rift between the citizen and society.

In his weekly editorial in al-Anbaa newspaper, Jumblat called for reconsidering the financial disbursement of Lebanese officials “at the expense of citizens and the public treasury”.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's media adviser Buthaina Shaaban has declined to comment on a probe in Lebanon into her possible involvement in a plot by former minister Michel Samaha and Syrian security chief Ali Mamlouk to carry out strife-inciting bombings in Lebanon, sources close to Shaaban told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

The sources said Shaaban has rejected to comment on “the leaks” about her in Lebanon, dismissing them as “part of the polemics and political debates that Lebanon is known for and which do not deserve any response or comment.”

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly on Friday said “the United States calls on all parties to work together to insulate Lebanon from the effects of the violence in Syria resulting from the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on the Syrian people.”

Speaking after a meeting with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab, Connelly said she discussed with the LF leader their “deep concern over the destabilizing actions of Syria in Lebanon.” 

A Hizbullah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official told the Associated Press on Tuesday, a development that could stoke already soaring tensions over an alleged role for the Lebanese group in the civil war next door.

Hizbullah has stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad since the uprising began 18 months ago, even after the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain. The group says it is backing the Syrian regime because of its support for the anti-Israel resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine and because it is willing to implement political reforms.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday said that preventing him from entering the Our Lady of Elige Church in Maifouq on Sunday was a breach of the Lebanese National Charter by "those who are claiming to be Christian," noting that the FPM does not mind that the Orthodox Gathering electoral law be put to a vote during the meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committees.

"I regret that the ownership of the Our Lady of Elige Church has shifted to the Lebanese Forces, but I'd like to say that the Constitution guarantees freedom of movement in any region and no politician can prevent anyone from enjoying that privilege," Aoun told reporters sardonically after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc.

Iran will not back down on its nuclear program despite the problems caused by Western sanctions, including a dramatic slide in the value of its currency, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday.

"We are not a people to retreat on the nuclear issue," he told a news conference in Tehran.

Around 100 people were killed across Syria as fighting raged in a strategic district of Syria's commercial capital Aleppo on Saturday, the third day of a rebel offensive to seize the city, a watchdog said.

The focal point of combat was Salaheddin, a rebel stronghold on the southwest side of the city where insurgents attacked an army position, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.