BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun took aim at President Michel Sleiman Monday, saying that anyone who wants to protect Christians must safeguard their positions in civil service appointments.

“We have told him [Sleiman] that our bloc is his bloc, but we did not see any initiative or comment [from him],” Aoun said in an interview with OTV, an FPM-affiliated television station. “He who wants to protect the Christians must protect their positions in [administrative] appointments.”

Aoun heads the second largest bloc in Parliament after the Future bloc led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and has 10 ministers in Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s 30-member Cabinet.

Aoun’s remarks came amid a Cabinet crisis sparked last week after Mikati suspended Cabinet meetings following sharp differences with ministers from Aoun’s parliamentary Change and Reform bloc over the issue of civil service appointments.

Aoun’s ministers rejected Mikati’s proposed names for appointments to the Higher Disciplinary Committee. Mikati has implicitly accused Aoun’s ministers of obstructing the Cabinet’s work, saying he will not allow anyone to undermine the prime minister’s prerogatives.

Aoun was also responding to Sleiman, who was reported Monday to have defended Mikati’s decision.

In an interview with As-Safir newspaper published Monday, Sleiman said: “There is no decision to suspend the Cabinet’s sessions. Rather, the prime minister preferred to make matters conducive for the appointments to the Disciplinary Committee so that they can be passed according to regulations.”

Sleiman said that there wasn’t a major split among Cabinet members, but that they were just differences of opinion regarding administrative appointment procedures.

The president said: “The solution [to resume Cabinet meetings] is by returning to the law, rules and general principles in political action. The [verbal] attacks by one party against another and disrespect by one position of the other’s role and representation will not provide solutions.”

Although Sleiman last month denied that his relations with Aoun were strained, he admitted differences with the FPM chief over public sector appointments. A major bone of contention between Sleiman and Aoun was that each has his own candidate to fill the vacant key post of the president of the Higher Judicial Council.

While Aoun has supported Judge Tanios Meshleb for the post, Sleiman was reported to have backed Judge Alice Shabtini.