Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir hoped on Friday that Lebanese leaders would unify ranks and consult with President Michel Suleiman on ways to take Lebanon out of its crisis.

"Lebanon is going through a critical situation," Sfeir told a delegation from Voice of Lebanon radio station that moved to Dbayeh.

An indictment of Hizbullah members in connection with the murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri could forever tarnish the party's image as a resistance movement and threaten its raison d'etre, analysts say.

"Whether one single member or 100 are implicated makes absolutely no difference, Hizbullah won't accept it" said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a political analyst at the Doha-based Arab Institute for Research and Policy Studies.

Saudi Ambassador Ali Awad Assiri has denied there was a Saudi-Syrian initiative aimed at stirring Lebanon out of its crisis, saying Riyadh and the international community were keen on seeing an inter-Lebanese agreement over the deadlock.

“There is no Saudi-Syrian initiative for a solution. There are suggestions,” Assiri told As Safir daily in an interview published Friday.

Arab diplomatic sources in Beirut said that Premier Saad Hariri sent a letter to the Syrian leadership stressing his commitment to agreements reached between Damascus and Riyadh.

The letter came in response to accusations that Hariri was not committed to Riyadh’s demands on a settlement of the Lebanese crisis, the sources told As Safir newspaper.

The political aides to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly returned from Damascus with no new developments.

Al-Liwaa daily on Friday said Hizbullah's Hussein Khalil and Berri's Ali Hasan Khalil headed back home late Thursday after meeting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in an effort to help find a settlement to the ongoing Lebanon crisis.

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Rokn Abadi announced that a breakthrough in the Lebanon crisis is likely to be reached soon, stressing that there is no need to fear.

"Efforts to reach a compromise deal will achieve a breakthrough," he said in remarks published Friday by AL-Liwaa newspaper, adding that Prime Minister Hariri Saad Hariri's Tehran visit was "very successful" at all levels -- political, economic and social development.

Defense Minister Elias Murr was reportedly giving U.S. diplomats advice to pass on to Israel for any Israeli attack on Hizbullah, the Los Angeles Times quoted a leaked WikiLeaks cable as saying.

Murr has dismissed the cables as "incomplete and inaccurate."

France and Saudi Arabia were on Friday reportedly engaged in efforts to reach a settlement ahead of issuance of the indictment in the murder case of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted Hizbullah sources as saying that while the U.S. was seeking issuance of the indictment before Dec. 15, Paris and Riyadh were trying to delay the decision by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad has called for serious efforts to help the regional Saudi-Syrian initiative on Lebanon to succeed.

In remarks to As Safir newspaper, Raad said: “At a time when the Saudi-Syrian initiative is becoming more active to settle the crisis, this stage requires serious efforts to help the regional effort.”

U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice has stressed that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon should not be compromised on.

Rice said it was important to remember that the Lebanese government and the people are the ones who asked for the establishment of the tribunal.