Intensive contacts have been launched among rival political parties to salvage this week’s Cabinet session amid signs of a continuing boycott by the Free Patriotic Movement’s ministers over military appointments, political sources said.

Parliamentary sources familiar with the FPM said that Hezbollah, whose successful contacts with a number of political factions have led Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, the FPM leader, to attend a national dialogue session Monday, is playing a big role in ongoing efforts to rescue a Cabinet meeting set for Thursday.

The contacts, involving Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, the Future Movement and the FPM, are aimed at reaching a solution that could lead to an understanding to save the Cabinet from a further split as the FPM’s two ministers insist on dealing with the causes that prompted them to suspend their participation in a Cabinet session last month, the sources said.

The sources added that the solution being mulled calls for not signing the decisions taken at the last Cabinet session and which do not affect the people’s interests, and for postponing the signing of other decisions until an understanding is reached between Salam and all Cabinet members, particularly the boycotting Christian side.

Among proposed solutions is turn the Cabinet session into a meeting for consultation on Lebanon’s paper to be presented to a conference on the fate of Syrian refugees in host countries that will be held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meetings later this month.

Such a solution will allow Bassil to attend the Cabinet session and be the first step toward melting the ice between Salam and the FPM’s ministers, the sources said.

Bassil and the other FPM minister, Education Minister Elias Bou Saab, along with their Tashnag ally, Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian, boycotted a Cabinet session on Aug. 25 in protest against the extension of senior military officials’ terms.

The FPM has since stepped up its campaign against the government, vowing to challenge all Cabinet decrees passed in the absence of its ministers. It has also hinted it might withdraw from national dialogue if the dispute over the interpretation of the National Charter on equal Muslim-Christian power sharing is not settled.

Among other decisions, the Cabinet approved a report by a ministerial committee tasked with the Litani River pollution issue, and reaffirmed its support for the government plan to solve the trash crisis.

Bassil has said the FPM’s boycott was “a warning message” to the government against pushing forward with plans to extend the mandate of Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi, which is set to expire on Sept. 30.

With regard to the appointment of a new Army chief of staff to replace Maj. Gen. Walid Salman, whose term ended last month, the same sources said efforts are underway to find a ruling that would allow Defense Minister Samir Moqbel to issue a decree allowing Salman to stay in his post for six more months in order to avoid a vacuum in this post if the Cabinet is unable to appoint a successor.

In tandem with the lengthening of Salman’s term, Kahwagi’s mandate will also be extended because such a measure does not need a Cabinet approval, but a decision from the defense minister, the sources said.

There is semiunanimity among political factions on the need to extend Kahwagi’s mandate, while the FPM has become convinced that its opposition to the extension would lead to nowhere.

However, the sources believe that the success of these steps hinges on the progress of the national dialogue session and whether the rival leaders would be able to agree on issues to be raised at the meeting to be chaired by Berri at his Ain al-Tineh residence.