BEIRUT, Lebanon - The Lebanese Shiite Movement Hezbollah Monday accused the United States of obstructing a solution to end the political crisis in Lebanon. Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan said the main obstacle to the success of the ongoing negotiations between the Lebanese Shiite House Speaker Nabih Berri, a close ally of Hezbollah, and the head of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, Saad Hariri, was "the United States and its positions towards the Lebanese crisis."

"The US has not yet agreed that an internal consensus must emerge in Lebanon. It will continue its obstruction of efforts until it loses hope of succeeding in imposing its hegemony and dominance over Lebanon," Hajj Hassan said.

The Hezbollah-led opposition, which has close links with Iran and Syria, insists on its demands for a national unity government, which would grant them a veto power.

"There cannot be a settlement to the current crisis, unless a national unity is formed, with 19 ministers loyal to the majority and eleven to the opposition," another Hezbollah legislator, Hassan Fadlallah, said.

"If we really want to end the country's crisis then the discussion must revolve around a formula that grants the opposition a veto power over cabinet decisions," he said.

Anti-Syrian legislator Alaa Tero, who is loyal to Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt, said: "This is what the Syrians want the opposition to have - a veto power to block the formation of the international tribunal to try suspects in the (2005) assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri."

According to a source close to the majority, a previously proposed formula by anti-Syrian Premier Fouad Seniora would have meant relinquishing the majority's two-third power without allowing the opposition to control more than one-third of seats - the number needed to topple the government.

Seniora had suggested an option in which the majority would have 19 ministers in the new cabinet, the opposition 10, and one would be independent.

Despite the opposition's accusation, Berri, a member of the opposition, remained optimistic about finding a settlement to Lebanon's political crisis.

Berri was quoted as saying on Monday that the settlement was "inevitable" whether it would be reached before or at the upcoming Arab summit due to be held in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

But he warned that reaching a settlement would be "much more difficult after the summit."

Berri said the crisis would end, if the majority studied and approved the opposition's amendments on the structure of the international tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri case.

Hariri was killed in 2005 in a massive car bomb blast, which was largely blamed on Syria.

An ongoing UN probe has so far implicated Syrian and Lebanese officers in the assassination, while Damascus has vehemently denied all charges.

Lebanon's anti-Syrian majority says that the opposition is trying to block the formation of a court to protect their Syrian allies by insisting on the veto power.

Since Hariri's assassination, Lebanon has been suffering a deep political crisis, raising fears the country might become engulfed in a new civil war, similar to that of 1975-1990. -Agencies