RIYADH, March 23: Saudi reformists failed to secure a promise from Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz to release a group of fellow activists during a meeting late Monday, one of them told newsmen on Tuesday.

"No agreement was reached on the release of the detainees ... It seems they will be put on trial," said liberal academic Khaled al-Dakheel, one of about a dozen activists who met Nayef for more than three hours.

Six reformists among more than 10 arrested last week remain in detention, where they have been joined by a lawyer who publicly protested their arrests. Dakheel confirmed that the detained activists were refusing to pledge not to put their names to pro-reform petitions as a price for their freedom.

"There was no agreement to hold another meeting (with Prince Nayef), but the dialogue option remains open," he said. "A kind of misunderstanding appears to have suddenly arisen between the government and the reformists, and it needs to be remedied because the reformists are not circumventing the government. Rather, they are working with it," he added.

Dakheel said he and others at the meeting with the powerful interior minister argued that it was not true that their detained fellow reformists were "threatening national unity," as authorities have accused them of doing.

He said it was "possible" that the recent setback to the cautious reform process on which Saudi Arabia has embarked was due to differences of view about the pace such reforms should take within the Saudi leadership.

"It is possible" that there are such differences, he said in reply to a question, "but Prince Nayef spoke on behalf of the entire leadership." The detained activists are Ali al-Demaini, Mohammed Saeed Tayyeb, Matruk al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamed, Tewfik al-Qussayer and Sheikh Suleiman al-Rushoodi, in addition to Abderrahman al-Lahem, the lawyer who had publicly criticized the arrests. -AFP