ABU DHABI - Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Muallem landed in Abu Dhabi Monday on a Gulf tour aimed at drumming up support for Syria in the countdown to a UN vote threatening sanctions against Damascus.

Muallem, whose arrival was reported by the official WAM news agency, came from Bahrain, where he delivered a message from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to King Hamad during a meeting with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa.

King Hamad later flew to Saudi Arabia where he is due to hold talks with Saudi leaders on "the Syrian file", a Bahraini official told AFP in Manama.

Muallem was touring the region as the UN Security Council prepared to meet Monday to vote on a toughly-worded resolution threatening Syria with economic sanctions unless it cooperates fully with a probe into the murder of ex-Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.

The co-sponsors of the draft resolution, the United States, France and Britain, say they are confident that a large majority of the council's 15 members will endorse the text and say they do not expect a veto by China or Russia.

The special session at foreign ministers' level follows the release of a report by chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis implicating senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's murder in a Beirut bomb blast last February.

Bahrain "believes that officials who are proven to be involved in the murder of Hariri should be held accountable, but the Syrian people should not be punished," the Bahraini official said, adding that Manama and other Arab states did not want a "repeat of the Iraqi experience in terms of sanctions".

Speaking earlier in Kuwait, Muallem told reporters there was no similarity between Syria and Iraq, which was subjected to sweeping UN sanctions for 13 years until Saddam Hussein's regime was ousted by US-led forces in 2003.

"I would have wished logic to prevail, but unfortunately, it is the balance of forces (tilted in favor of the United States) that prevailed," Muallem said about the Security Council session.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah told reporters that Assad had taken "positive steps" following the release of the Mehlis report and stressed the stability of Syria and that of the region at large were linked.

The Kuwaiti chief diplomat also recalled Syria's support for his country when it joined a US-led international coalition which liberated Kuwait from seven months of Iraqi occupation in the 1991 Gulf War.

Muallem had earlier visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

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