DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria's plans to host an Arab summit this month are mired in tensions focused on the presidential crisis in Lebanon and uncertainties over who will represent Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon has yet to be invited to the March 29-30 summit in Damascus while regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia only got its invitation last week -- days after most of the other members of the 22-strong Arab League.
Lebanon has been without a president since November amid feuding between a parliamentary majority which is backed by the West and several Arab countries, and a Hezbollah-led opposition, backed by Syria and Iran.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt accuse Syria of blocking the election of a new president in Lebanon, which was under Syrian military domination for 29 years until Damascus withdrew its troops in 2005.
The two heavyweights, which along with Syria and Lebanon are among the seven founding members of the Arab League, have linked the level of their participation at the summit to the election of a president in Beirut.
Syria's official press has meanwhile accused the United States of responsibility for the Lebanon crisis and has charged that Washington is now trying to torpedo the summit as well.
"The United States are exerting pressure in order to sabotage the summit in Syria," said Elias Murad, chief editor of Syria's Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath Party.
Murad said US pressure on Syria was due to its support of "political forces in Lebanon and Palestine opposed to Israel", namely Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Hamas, whose chief, Khaled Meshaal, lives in Syria.
"The summit has nothing to do with the election of a president in Lebanon. it is an ordinary summit decided by the Arab League as part of joint Arab action," Murad said.
The United States has also turned the heat on Syria in recent weeks.
The US Navy has deployed warships to waters off Lebanon, amid concern over the protracted crisis in Beirut which US President George W. Bush blames on Syria.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has slammed the US deployment as a "show of force" aimed at undermining a political solution to Lebanon's long-running crisis.
Last week Washington also put ships making port calls in Syria on a watchlist in the latest step to ratchet up the pressure on Damascus over its alleged links with terrorism.
Syria has repeatedly denied charges of involvement with terrorism or responsibility for the Lebanon crisis.
"The Bush administration is behind the crisis in Lebanon," said the official Ath-Thawra daily.
"The United States wants to provoke a conflict between Arab countries and Iran as an alternative to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and wants to divide the Arabs into moderates and extremists," Ath-Thawra added.
According to Murad, "all Arab countries" will be represented at the summit.
But in the run-up to the summit, several countries including regional US allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have not revealed the level of their participation.
Questions also abound on when Lebanon will be formally invited to attend the summit and who will represent the country in the absence of a president. The Lebanese constitution says the government fills in for the head of state.
"An invitation will be sent in an adequate fashion," a Syrian official said, without providing further details.
Meanwhile a parliamentary session on Tuesday to elect Lebanon's president was postponed to March 25 -- the 16th delay since September when parliament was first due to pick a successor for pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud who ended his term in November.
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