Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah boycotted Lebanon's diminished cabinet following the resignation of six pro-Syrian ministers and called for the establishment of a "clean government," local press reported Tuesday.

"This government will go and nothing associates us with it ( government) after the resignations," Nasrallah was quoted by Naharnet news website as saying.

He was referring to the resignation of the six ministers, five of them from Hezbollah and the other from allied Amal, hours after rival leaders' efforts to reach an agreement on the formation of a national unity government failed on Sunday.

"This country is ours. We sacrificed tens of thousands of martyrs, wounded, prisoners and disabled for the sake of safeguarding it (Lebanon) as well as protecting its dignity and glory, and we will not give up," the As Safir daily also quoted Nasrallah as saying.

Addressing late Monday a crowd of about 6,000 residents who lost their homes in Beirut's southern suburbs during Israeli offensives on Lebanon in the summer, Nasrallah said that a "clean government is coming up."

Lebanon's political crisis has taken a turn for the worse following the resignations of six ministers and the cabinet's approval on Monday of a UN draft text setting up an international tribunal to try those responsible for killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri despite the resignations.

Hariri was killed in a powerful bombing on the Beirut seafront on Feb. 14 last year, causing a mass anti-Syrian wave which prompted withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

Source: Xinhua