DAMASCUS - The solution to the Lebanese political crisis will be found only through Syria, and Arab efforts will only succeed without foreign intervention, an official Syrian newspaper said Tuesday.

"The real solution (to Lebanon) passes through Damascus," Ath-Thawra said in an editorial a day after a visit by Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa.

"Syria, which supports all Arab efforts without reservation ... thinks that Amr Mussa's mission will go nowhere unless (US ambassador to Lebanon) Jeffrey Feltham and other ambassadors active in Beirut stop putting" a spanner in the works, it said.

"These ambassadors have preempted Amr Mussa's mission for a solution to the Lebanese crisis by statements ... aimed at setting back Arab efforts," it added.

It said those efforts would "not lead anywhere unless they are deployed away from American-Israeli influences ... and Arab problems can not be resolved unless there is no foreign interference."

Mussa called for continued efforts to resolve the political crisis in Lebanon after a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital on Monday.

The worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war has paralysed the country for more than seven months.

It erupted when six pro-Syrian ministers resigned from Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's Western-backed government last November. The Shiite Hezbollah-led opposition, which is backed by Damascus and Tehran, has demanded a unity government in which it would have a veto.

An Arab League mission to Beirut last month ended without making progress in getting Lebanon's feuding political factions closer to the negotiating table. -AFP