BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun paid a rare visit to Speaker Nabih Berri Friday, in what appeared to be the first move toward ending a row between Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Mikati that has brought the Cabinet to a standstill.

During the two-hour meeting at the speaker’s residence in Ain al-Tineh, Berri and Aoun discussed the 2-week-old Cabinet crisis sparked by a dispute between Mikati and ministers from Aoun’s parliamentary Change and Reform bloc over the issue of civil service appointments.

Details about the results of the meeting were not immediately known. Sources close to Berri kept mum on the outcome of the talks.

But Baabda MP Alain Aoun, a nephew of the FPM leader, described the meeting as “a good step” toward finding a solution for the Cabinet crisis. He said his uncle was satisfied with the talks with Berri.

“General Aoun briefed Speaker Berri on all aspects of the [Cabinet] crisis and his vision for a solution,” MP Aoun told The Daily Star Friday night.

As a means to resolve the crisis, the Baabda MP said Mikati must recognize Aoun’s bloc, which is the second largest bloc in Parliament with 27 MPs, as “a main partner in executive authority.”

“Mikati must take into account the size and role of the Change and Reform bloc in [administrative] appointments,” Aoun said.

Asked whether Friday’s meeting would encourage Berri, who had intervened in the past to end Cabinet rifts, to begin efforts to resolve the crisis, Aoun said the answer lay with the speaker.

A political source said the Berri-Aoun meeting, which lasted longer than expected, had been “a major indication” that the FPM leader was ready to seek a solution for the crisis.

“Berri and Aoun addressed in depth the causes of the crisis and the atmosphere was very good,” the source told The Daily Star.

Michel Aoun has accused Mikati of violating the Constitution with the suspension on Feb. 1 of Cabinet sessions following sharp differences with ministers from Aoun’s bloc over appointments of Christians to key public administration posts. Aoun’s ministers rejected names that were proposed by Mikati to head the High Disciplinary Committee, a position traditionally reserved for Greek Catholics.

Mikati defended Thursday his decision to suspend Cabinet meetings, saying the move was not meant to shirk responsibility but rather to protect state institutions.

Mikati has signaled that Cabinet sessions could resume once Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas signs the transportation allowance decree. Nahhas, one of Aoun’s 10 ministers in Mikati’s 30-member Cabinet, has refused to sign the decree contending that it should first be ratified by Parliament.

The Berri-Aoun meeting came as Parliament is expected next week to approve a draft law authorizing the government to set the transportation allowance, a move that is likely to eliminate a major hurdle in the way of resuming Cabinet sessions.Meanwhile, sources in the Change and Reform bloc said the meeting between Berri and Aoun came in the wake of an understanding on a solution to a dispute over the transportation allowance decree.

Parliamentary sources in the FPM said that the presence of the bloc in the Cabinet had begun to have an adverse effect on the movement’s popular base, especially since the country was not far from the 2013 parliamentary elections that would lead to the emergence of a new authority in Lebanon.

Aoun has become convinced that President Michel Sleiman and Mikati have agreed not to let ministers from his bloc make any achievements in their ministries and also not to give the bloc a share of Christian appointments, the sources said. They added that some of Berri’s stances on the Cabinet crisis converged with the “diabolical alliance” between Sleiman and Mikati against Aoun.

According to the sources, only “a new approach” by Mikati and Berri can prevent the withdrawal of ministers of Aoun’s bloc from the Cabinet, although the circumstances through which Lebanon is passing require that the Cabinet stay in office and despite insistence by Aoun’s main ally Hezbollah that the time is not suitable now for a government change.

The same sources said that unless there was a change in the Cabinet’s conduct toward Aoun, the FPM leader would inform Hezbollah of the reasons that would prompt him to withdraw his ministers from the Cabinet.

However, the sources expected the Cabinet crisis to be resolved when Parliament approves a draft law next Wednesday authorizing the government to act on the transportation allowance and Nahhas signs it. The sources said that unless a solution to the transportation allowance problem was accompanied by an agreement to eliminate Aoun’s concerns, the crisis would be renewed in the Cabinet.

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

Last month, Nahhas signed a Cabinet decree approving a wage hike which increased the minimum wage among other measures. Nahhas refused to sign a decree under which the government would set the transportation allowance, arguing that this was illegal and required a draft law to be passed by Parliament.

Sleiman was outraged by Nahhas’ stance, saying that previous Cabinets had set transportation fees and that was the norm. Sleiman reiterated Thursday the need for Nahhas to sign the transportation allowance decree.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Walid Daouk said Mikati’s suspension of Cabinet sessions constituted “a positive shock” that made everyone aware of the drawbacks of impeding Cabinet’s work. Lebanon is facing “fateful challenges and the government’s concern should not be confined to this huge amount of searching for false victories at the expense of the public interest,” Daouk said in an interview to be published in Al-Massira magazine Saturday.