Sources close to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri denied that he would hold meetings with Lebanese officials in France.

In remarks to An Nahar daily Sunday, the sources said that Hariri is currently in Riyadh.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh warned American citizens on Wednesday of a plot by a "terrorist group" to kidnap Westerners in the Saudi capital.

In a statement on its website, the embassy advised "U.S. citizens in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that we have received information that a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia may be planning to abduct Westerners in Riyadh."

Riyadh has informed Prime Minister Najib Miqati that he is not welcome in Saudi Arabia, revealed opposition sources to the daily Ad Diyar on Sunday.

They added that Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat was charged with relaying this message to the premier.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday defended her government's silence on a reported secret deal to sell hundreds of tanks to Saudi Arabia, and said she was committed to democracy in the region.

"Deliberation and decisions by the federal security council are secret for good reason," she told the daily Mittelbayerische Zeitung, referring to the panel including the chancellor and top ministers that rules on arms exports.

Yemeni authorities arrested the head of a Shiite opposition party, Hassan Zaid, at Sanaa airport on Tuesday as he was headed for the Saudi city of Jeddah, his son said.

"My father was detained," Mohammed Hassan Zaid told Agence France Presse. "He was travelling to Jeddah when he was detained and not allowed to leave."

Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics campaigning for the right to drive, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday asking why she has yet to comment on this issue.

The coalition stressed in their letter that Clinton “personally making a public statement of support for Saudi Arabia opening the country's roads to women would be a game changing moment.”

Gulf foreign ministers met Sunday in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh to discuss the crisis in Yemen, after proposing an exit plan for embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A Yemeni opposition delegation, led by Mohammed Salem Bassandawa, himself a former foreign minister, and Yassin Saeed Noman, head of the opposition Common Forum, were in Riyadh, seeking details on a plan for Saleh's departure.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri traveled to Riyadh on Thursday to attend the funeral of Saudi King Abdullah’s sister, a statement by his press office said.

Hariri was accompanied by his bureau chief Nader Hariri and his advisor Hani Hammoud, it said.

Gulf Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in the Saudi capital to discuss Iranian interference after Arab world unrest spilled over into some of the region's Western-backed monarchies.

Abdul Latif al-Zayani, the Gulf Cooperation Council's new secretary general, condemned "Iran's meddling in the internal affairs of GCC countries" on the eve of the meeting, saying it "threatened security and stability in the region".

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has reportedly held a telephone conversation with Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri, the first contact between the two men since the Druze leader named Najib Miqati as premier-designate more than two months ago.

Pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted informed sources as saying on Tuesday that Jumblat called Hariri and stressed to him the need to return to the national dialogue table.