RIYADH, March 20: Saudi Arabia hopes its active diplomacy ahead of next week's Arab summit will yield a breakthrough in Lebanon, Arab support for the new Palestinian government and agreement to promote stability in Iraq, a Saudi official said on Tuesday.

The formation of the Palestinian unity cabinet will enable the March 28-29 gathering in Riyadh to work on reviving the Middle East peace process on the basis of an Arab peace plan, the official said, requesting anonymity.

He said the oil-rich kingdom was hopeful that contacts under way to break the deadlock between Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority and the pro-Syrian opposition would produce an agreement.

That would allow for a “unified delegation” to show up at the Arab League's first annual summit to be held in the Saudi capital.

But “we must be cautious because (a deal) might fall through at the last minute,” he said. “What we are seeing and hearing arouses optimism, but what matters is to reach agreement on the last points, which are usually sensitive.”Leaders of the parliamentary majority, which is close to Saudi Arabia, and the opposition led by the Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is backed by both Syria and Iran, have held a series of meetings in the past two weeks.

They are trying to end the standoff which began when six pro-Syrian ministers walked out of the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in November.

Efforts to end the stalemate were stepped up after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed the crisis with King Abdullah during a landmark visit to Saudi Arabia on March 3.

The leaders of the regional Sunni and Shiite heavyweights also agreed to fight Sunni-Shiite strife, the official Saudi media said after the meeting, which was overshadowed by the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.

King Abdullah met in Riyadh last week with both the president of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region, Massud Barzani, and former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Arab diplomatic sources said Riyadh also hosted meetings of Iraqi politicians last week, but they could not provide details.

“The important thing is to have a positive Arab role that would help Iraqi factions reach stability. This is the objective of the kingdom's contacts,” the Saudi official said.

An Arab diplomat told AFP that Saudi Arabia had “reservations” about the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and would prefer to see a cabinet more representative of all factions and religious communities in Iraq.

According to an Iraqi diplomat, Maliki will not be part of the Iraqi delegation to the Riyadh summit, which will be headed by President Jalal Talabani, who is also a Kurd.

The Saudi official said the formation of a Palestinian unity government joining the Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah party under a Saudi-brokered agreement last month “will enable the summit to discuss ways of providing political and economic aid to the Palestinians.”Arab leaders can now focus on “formulating a plan of action to activate the peace process on the basis of the Arab initiative, which the Arabs concur on upholding without amendments,” he said.

The Saudi-authored blueprint, endorsed at a 2002 Arab summit, offers normalisation of ties with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from Arab lands seized in the 1967 Middle East war and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israel objects in particular to clauses on the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

A Palestinian diplomat said Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya will attend the summit alongside president Mahmud Abbas, the head of Fatah.—AFP