Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has reiterated that the government led by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora was "illegitimate and everything that comes out of it is void," local daily Akhbar reported Thursday.

Lahoud, a close ally of the Hesbollah-led opposition, made the remarks in a letter to the secretariat of the cabinet on Wednesday, said the report.

A statement released from the presidential palace was quoted as saying that the Seniora government has lost its "constitutional legitimacy" since Nov. 11 last year, when the opposition started protesting against the government.

According to the statement, Lahoud said in the letter that all calls, meetings and decisions of the government "do not exist" as of November, when six pro-Syrian ministers resigned.

However, the parliamentary majority considered Lahoud's positions as harmonizing with the opposition demands to topple the government.

Lebanese sectarian tension began to escalate when the six pro- Syrian ministers resigned on Nov. 11, 2006, after Seniora and the anti-Syrian majority in the parliament rejected the opposition's demand for a new national unity government.

In the wake of pro-Syrian ministers' resignation, the opposition said that Seniora's government had lost its legitimacy since Shiite Muslims are no longer represented.

But the anti-Syrian ruling parliamentary majority has accused the opposition of doing Damascus and Tehran's bidding and seeking to undermine the formation of an international tribunal on the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. -Agencies