Contacts were kicked off on Monday between rival Lebanese parties to defuse tensions sparked by street protests fueled by anger at corruption that has led to the worst economic crisis in decades.
Minor clashes had erupted between rival parties that have taken part in the protests.
Officials from the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) held phone calls with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement to underline “support for the people’s demands, while also stressing opposition to the blocking of roads.”
They warned against attempts to “exploit the wave of popular protests to spark strife.”
The PSP said: “Amid the deteriorating economic and living crisis and absence of any efforts by officials to ease the crisis and government formation impasse, the people have nothing left to do but exercise their most basic right to express their rejection of the crisis.”
The party said it supports the protests as long as they do not harm civil peace and stability.
It added that PSP chief Walid Jumblatt has tasked former minister Ghazi al-Aridi to carry out contacts with Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa and Speaker Nabih Berri’s adviser Ahmed Baalbaki and to “stress the need that protests should not be exploited to create any strife.”
A political crisis has left Lebanon without a government since Hassan Diab resigned last August following the cataclysmic Beirut port blast. Saad Hariri has been named to form a new government but his efforts have stumbled at differences with President Michel Aoun.
The protests come against the backdrop of a crash in the local currency, an increase of consumer goods prices and political bickering between rival groups that has delayed the formation of a new government. Lebanon's currency has lost 85% of its value in the past year and a half.
On Monday, Aoun blasted the road closures calling them “organized acts of sabotage that aim to undermine stability.”
