BEIRUT: Opposition March 14 MPs will end their two-month boycott of sessions of the Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee, after an agreement was brokered by Speaker Nabih Berri in a meeting of the committee at Nijmeh Square Wednesday.

“We will call a meeting of the Finance and Budget Committee next week which will be attended by all its members, and start our legislative and oversight work which will pick up momentum in the upcoming period,” Metn MP Ibrahim Kanaan, the committee’s chair, told reporters while the meeting was under way.

“We met as Finance and Budget Committee under the speaker and ... the atmosphere was positive. [The meeting] focused on [Parliament’s] bylaws,” he added.

March 14 MPs boycotted 10 consecutive sessions of the committee beginning in late November, when their demand that Kanaan apologize for remarks he had made went unheeded. During a news conference in November, Kanaan made what March 14 politicians called false accusations and fabrications against former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on his performance as finance minister in the Cabinet of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

But Kanaan maintains that if his comments on Siniora were slanderous, the judiciary would handle the matter.

Kanaan is from Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, while Siniora heads the rival Future Movement bloc of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Beirut MP Ghazi Youssef, who said earlier Wednesday that March 14 MPs were awaiting Kanaan’s apology, said after the meeting that March 14 MPs would resume their participation in the committee’s meetings, despite not having received an apology from Kanaan.

Speaking to the Central News Agency, Youssef, a member of the Future bloc, said that March 14 MPs had requested Berri to restore order to the committees’ work and enforce Parliament’s bylaws and thanked Berri for his effort.

“Let bygones be bygones,” said Youssef, a member of the committee, expressing his hope that the work of Parliamentary committees would not be dragged into politics.

“Like other chairs of committees, Kanaan vowed not to distort others’ remarks and not to use the committee to attack the other side.”

For his part, Aley MP Fadi Habr, also a member of the committee, said that discussions during the meeting focused on respecting Article 34 of Parliament’s bylaws, which stipulates that the minutes of the Parliament’s committees along with voting should remain confidential and not be revealed to the media.

The Kataeb (Phalange) Party official said that attendees decided to move ahead with the committee’s work and put disputes aside. March 14 MPs have accused Kanaan of violating Article 34.

Prior to the committee’s meeting, Berri chaired a meeting at Parliament for the heads and rapporteurs of Parliament’s 16 committees.

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Bint Jbeil MP Hasan Fadlallah said that the atmosphere during the meeting was “friendly and productive.”

“During the meeting ... [MPs] discussed parliamentary affairs, especially pressing draft laws that would benefit all people, like the rent draft law for example and other laws,” said Fadlallah, a Hezbollah official.

The lawmaker said that attendees highlighted the importance of the role of Parliament committees in legislation, oversight and accountability. “The atmosphere was friendly and productive ... Speaker Nabih Berri decided to hold similar meetings every month.”

Earlier Wednesday, Berri visited President Michel Sleiman at Baabda Palace where the two discussed the work of parliamentary committees and the legislature’s progress in passing pressing draft laws.