BEIRUT: Signs of a new crack within Lebanon’s Cabinet emerged Monday with a Hezbollah minister criticizing premier Tammam Salam’s speech at the annual Arab League summit, arguing it justified the “aggression on Yemen and its people.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s top spiritual leaders pleaded with rival political factions to elect a new president, warning that the 10-month-old vacuum in the top Christian post put the country’s security and sovereignty in jeopardy.

The plea by Muslim and Christian religious leaders coincided with Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for a new Parliament session Thursday to elect a president, amid signs that the session was doomed to fail over a lack of quorum like the previous 20 attempts, heralding a prolonged presidential vacuum.

Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan, one of two ministers representing Hezbollah in the 24-member government, said Salam’s speech at the Arab summit did not represent Lebanon’s official position and was not discussed by the Cabinet. He said he would raise Hezbollah’s objections to Salam’s speech at the next Cabinet session scheduled for Thursday.

“We have heard Salam’s speech at the Arab summit conference in Sharm el-Sheikh in which he justified the aggression carried out by some Arab countries on Yemen and its people and also [announced] his support for the creation of a joint Arab force through the Arab League,” Hajj Hasan said in a statement.

“These two stances were not discussed by the Lebanese government. Salam’s remarks express the viewpoint of a portion of the Lebanese and do not reflect Lebanon’s official position as represented by the Lebanese government,” he said.

His comments come three days after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah denounced Saudi Arabia for spearheading a coalition of 10 countries to launch a military offensive in Yemen.

Since its formation over a year ago, the Cabinet has been riven by political wrangling that has crippled its work and reduced its productivity.

At the end of their two-day summit held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh Sunday, Arab leaders voiced support for the Saudi-led military intervention against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and agreed to create a joint Arab force.

In his speech at the summit, Salam avoided taking a clear stance either supporting or rejecting the Saudi campaign in Yemen, in a move apparently designed to avert a split within the Cabinet, but said Lebanon supported “the formation of a joint Arab force to fight terrorism and safeguard pan-Arab security.” This was viewed as an implicit support for the Saudi campaign in Yemen.

The presidential election deadlock was a main theme at a Muslim-Christian spiritual summit held at Bkirki, the seat of the Maronite Church, north of Beirut.

In a statement issued after a four-hour meeting chaired by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, the country’s top religious leaders stressed that the election of a president should remain the “pivotal and pressing issue because the Christian Maronite president is an essential guarantee for the continuity of [sectarian] coexistence and, subsequently, the survival of the Lebanese state.”

“The spiritual summit expressed its deep concern and resentment over the continued vacuum in the presidency. This constitutional vacuum poses a threat to Lebanon’s sovereignty, security and safety, and even to its cultural formula,” they added.

Describing the Parliament sessions held since last April as “futile,” the spiritual leaders called on all political parties to give priority to the election of a president. “The delay in the presidential election reflects negatively on all constitutional and public institutions, thus crippling one institution after the other,” they said.In addition to Rai, the summit was also attended by Grand Mufti Abdel-Latif Derian, deputy head of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council Abdel-Amir Qabalan, Druze spiritual leader Naim Hasan and other senior Muslim and Christian religious figures.

The spiritual leaders called on the international community to increase its aid to help Lebanon cope with the presence on its territory of over 1.5 million Syrian refugees, in addition to thousands of Iraqi refugees and more than half a million Palestinian refugees.

They warned that the “unorganized influx” of Syrian refugees into the country had put the Lebanese citizens’ security and their various services sectors at risk, in addition to straining Lebanon’s cash-strapped treasury.

The religious leaders condemned the wave of terrorism and religious extremism roiling the region, and called for facing it with “boosting the positions of moderation and developing religious speeches that stress reconciliation, forgiveness and coexistence.”

They praised the “constructive role” played by Lebanon’s Army and security forces in protecting the country’s security and stability against Syria-based jihadis entrenched near the Lebanese border. They called for supplying the Army and security forces with arms and equipment to enable them to “repulse the aggression trying to infiltrate [Lebanon] across the border” with Syria.

For his part, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt launched a scathing verbal attack on Iran, saying Tehran’s support for Shiite militias in Iraq represented a quest for expansion. He also voiced support for the ongoing dialogue between the rival Lebanese factions.

Jumblatt said in his weekly statement in the Al-Anbaa online newspaper that Iran has left an imperial footprint in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Palestine. He proposed changing the name of theIslamic Republic of Iran to “Islamic Persia.”