BEIRUT, Lebanon - The chief of Lebanon's pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement issued a "final appeal" for Arab help in defusing tensions between Beirut and Damascus, in an interview published Wednesday.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah also slammed those whom he accused of fueling tensions between the two neighbours and said the current political crisis in Beirut proved the difficulty of the Lebanese governing themselves.

"The situation in Lebanon is bad and has dangerous repercussions," Nasrallah told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. "We launch our final appeal for the intervention of our Arab brothers."

Nasrallah was speaking a day after news that Saudi Arabia had delivered to the two sides a plan for rapprochement.

The involvement of other Arabs is necessary "not only to ask them to help Lebanon and Syria to surmount the crisis, but we also need the intervention of wise Arab leaders to overcome our internal problems."

Lebanon's government has been nearly paralysed since December 12 when Hezbollah and the country's other Syrian-backed Shiite movement, Amal, ordered their cabinet members not to participate.

Nasrallah said this crisis "proves that it is difficult for the Lebanese to manage their own affairs."

He came down hard in defending Damascus, the former power-broker in Lebanon, against the accusations of involvement in the series of high-profile murders that have soured bilateral relations.

The first of these was the assassination last February of popular former premier Rafiq Hariri, a case in which a United Nations probe has implicated the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.

"There is up till now no proof of Syria's implication," Nasrallah insisted.

Hariri's death sparked mass protests against Syrian domination of Lebanon, leading to the departure of thousands of Syrian troops in April after a 29-year presence.

Other critics of Syria have since been murdered, including Gibran Tueni, an MP and press magnate who was a victim of a car bombing in December.

Nasrallah added that he "rejects agitation in Lebanon for any war against Syria," referring to calls by anti-Damascus politicians for regime change in Damascus.

"That is dangerous not only for Syria but also for Lebanon. We consider that any political, security or media war that certain people want to drag Lebanon into is contrary to Lebanese national interests."

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told Britain's Financial Times daily that the kingdom had found a set of general principles for an agreement but was awaiting a response from both sides before working out the details.

"Now it's in the hands of both countries and they will let us know," he was quoted Tuesday as saying.

The prince insisted that Saudi Arabia was not seeking a compromise on the UN investigation.

"This has nothing to do with the investigation. We are as anxious as anyone to find out who the perpetrators are and we want them to be found quickly," Saud said.

Nasrallah also rejected as "baseless" claims of moves to create a "Shiite Crescent" in the Middle East. That program "exists only in the imagination of those who suggested it ... and who move in the orbit of the English and the Americans."

Jordanian King Abdullah II claimed that Shiite Iran was attempting to influence elections in neighboring Iraq last January to create a Shiite crescent extending from Iran to Lebanon.

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