BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati returned to Beirut Sunday, wrapping up a two-day official visit to France and voicing hope that a nearly two-week-old Cabinet crisis would be resolved soon.Following talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister Francois Fillon and Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, Mikati said France would downsize the number of its troops serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

“Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe informed me that a decision will be taken in the next weeks to reduce the number of French forces operating in the south, and that this decision was not a political one, but rather a cost-cutting measure,” Mikati told Lebanese journalists accompanying him on his visit and those based in Paris Saturday.

In his talks with French officials, Mikati renewed his condemnation of three bomb attacks that targeted French and Italian peacekeepers last year. Five French peacekeepers were wounded in a roadside bomb near the southern coastal city of Tyre on Dec. 9, four months after a similar roadside bomb wounded five French troops in the southern city of Sidon.

Describing his meeting with Sarkozy as “excellent,” Mikati said he did not discuss with French officials the Lebanese government crisis, but reiterated his demand that the Cabinet should be productive before its meetings could be resumed.

“My condition to resume the Cabinet’s sessions is a prior agreement on its productivity. It is not permissible that when the Cabinet’s productivity is suspended, the prime minister is held responsible,” he said. “Eventually, we will reach a specific solution. My desire is to return to holding productive Cabinet sessions, rather than sessions in form. I think matters will proceed properly.”

Mikati suspended the Cabinet’s sessions on Feb. 1 following sharp differences with ministers from MP Michel Aoun’s parliamentary Change and Reform bloc over the thorny issue of civil service appointments. He signaled that Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas’ signing of the transportation allowance decree could lead to the revival of the Cabinet’s work.

Mikati has cited Nahhas’ refusal to sign the transportation allowance decree as a major bone of contention with Aoun’s bloc. President Michel Sleiman said that Nahhas, one of Aoun’s 10 ministers, must sign the transportation allowance decree or else he should be replaced.

Nahhas, who has refused to sign the decree contending that it should be made legitimate first by Parliament, hit back at Sleiman. “I will not sign [the decree] even if 29 ministers, and not only a two-thirds majority, agreed to dismiss me. Anyone who can dismiss me, let him try,” Nahhas told Al-Jadeed TV Saturday.

Mikati defended his government’s controversial policy to dissociate Lebanon from the repercussions of the 11-month-old uprising in Syria, saying his main goal was to maintain stability in the country.

“What we are trying to do is to maintain Lebanon’s stability and strengthen immunity inside the Lebanese society in order to prevent the effects of external events on Lebanon or the import of any problem from abroad,” he said.

Mikati said French officials showed understanding toward Lebanon’s position on the unrest in Syria.

“What concerns me is to maintain stability in Lebanon and the unity of the Lebanese territory and people and to keep Lebanon away from any disputes. There was full French understanding toward this position,” he said.

Asked about Saudi King Abdullah’s comments on the Syrian crisis and Lebanon’s relations with Arab Gulf states which support the pro-democracy Syrian protesters, Mikati said: “Lebanon cannot move beyond the reality it finds itself in. We are definitely committed to our excellent relations with Arab countries and we respect the Saudi king’s position.”

King Abdullah Friday slammed vetoes by Russia and China on an Arab and Western-backed resolution put forward at the U.N. Security Council aimed at ending the bloodshed in Syria. The Saudi king described the move by Moscow and Beijing as “unfavorable,” saying it had shaken the confidence in the international body.

During his meeting with Juppe, Mikati said he had also expressed his concerns over the increasing number of Syrian refugees in north Lebanon.

“We [Juppe and I] spoke about the case of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and we are offering the necessary assistance,” Mikati said, adding however that Lebanon could only support a limited number given its special position. “I fear the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that Lebanon would not be able to cope with.”

While in Paris, Mikati visited former Prime Minister Saad Hariri who is in the French capital recovering from injuries he suffered during a skiing accident in the French Alps last month.

Meanwhile, Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami called on the Cabinet to meet immediately to discuss last week’s clashes between rival Lebanese factions, supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime, in the northern city of Tripoli that left three people dead and more than 20 wounded.