BEIRUT: Hezbollah has begun behind-the-scene contacts aimed at resolving a Cabinet crisis that threatens to plunge the country into a power vacuum, a senior Hezbollah official said Monday, as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was biding his time before launching his own initiative.

Hezbollah’s attempts to reconcile the conflicting views of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun over the thorny civil service appointments issue came as Mikati reiterated his position that he would resume stalled Cabinet sessions only if he was assured that such meetings would be productive.

“Hezbollah has launched behind-the-scene contacts in an attempt to end the row that has led to the suspension of the Cabinet meetings,” a senior Hezbollah official told The Daily Star.

The official said that a Hezbollah delegation that met with Aoun Monday could be linked to Hezbollah’s contacts to try to resolve the Cabinet crisis. The delegation included Mahmoud Qomati, deputy head of Hezbollah’s Political Council, and Ghaleb Abu Zainab, a Political Council member.

Hezbollah is also planning to hold backstage contacts with Mikati over the crisis, the official said.

Earlier Monday, Mikati discussed the Cabinet crisis during a meeting with Berri at the latter’s residence in Ain al-Tineh. Speaking to reporters after the one-hour meeting, Mikati said: “I briefed Speaker Berri on all the information I have. Speaker Berri is taking a wait-and-see attitude before initiating his contacts and taking any stance.”

Asked if he would call a Cabinet session this week, Mikati said: “If I am assured that the Cabinet will be productive, there will definitely be a session.”

However, Mikati’s meeting with Berri, who had intervened in the past to resolve Cabinet rifts, did not encourage the speaker to launch his own initiative to resume the Cabinet meetings.

“Speaker Berri has not been convinced yet of the need to intervene [to resolve the Cabinet crisis],” a source close to Berri told The Daily Star.

The crisis erupted last week after Mikati abruptly ended a Cabinet session 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.

Mikati has said he will not resume Cabinet sessions before agreement is reached on a formula to make the government productive.

Information Minister Walid Daouk said Mikati upheld his constitutional prerogatives in the Cabinet, hoping that the crisis would be solved quickly. In an interview with the Voice of Lebanon radio station, Daouk urged the two parties to “benefit from the current problem in order to establish a new mechanism of work inside the Cabinet.”

“There should be a mechanism for [civil service] appointments, especially since the approval of these appointments has been delayed,” Daouk said.

Mikati and Aoun’s ministers have blamed each other for the Cabinet’s paralysis and its failure to act on any major issues, including the long-awaited appointments to fill hundreds of vacant posts in the public administration and diplomatic corps. Mikati has vowed not to resign over the differences over the appointments.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Aoun, Hezbollah official Abu Zainab implicitly criticized Mikati’s decision to suspend the Cabinet’s sessions.

“I don’t know in whose interest the Cabinet work is suspended in this political period. Regardless of any subject, the Cabinet is for all the Lebanese. Therefore, all [parties] participate in it. No one should dominate anyone,” Abu Zainab said, adding: “We want the Council of Ministers a partnership council because all [parties] are sharing responsibility.”

Asked if the Hezbollah delegation was mediating between Aoun and Mikati, Abu Zainab said: “We came to listen to him to all problems in this respect. Gen. Aoun does not need a mediation because his stance is known. We always stand on his side and the side of the Free Patriotic Movement.” He added that all parties, including Hezbollah, should act to resolve the Cabinet crisis.

Abu Zainab and Qoumati also congratulated Aoun on the sixth anniversary of a memorandum of understanding signed by Aoun and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah to cement a political alliance between the two sides.

Separately, the Kataeb Party decried the state of disarray within the Cabinet, saying its resignation has become inevitable. A statement issued after a meeting of the party’s Politbureau said the Cabinet has entered into a “coma” as a result of the policy followed by some of its members.