Saudi Arabia warned its citizens on Monday to avoid travel to Lebanon in the face of the political instability resulting from the deadlock between the Saudi-backed government and Iranian-backed opposition over the election of a new president.

"The foreign ministry has advised citizens not to travel to Lebanon due to the unstable political and security conditions it is passing through at the moment," said a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The statement also appealed to Saudis currently in Lebanon to be cautious when moving around.

Saudi Arabia has been actively involved in trying to end Lebanon's gravest political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, with parliament paralysed in a power struggle between the government and the opposition.

The ruling majority in Beirut blames Iran's main Arab ally Syria for the crisis in Lebanon, which has been without a president since November. Damascus denies the charge.

Regional observers have said that failure to break the deadlock could lead some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, to boycott an Arab summit due to be held in Damascus on March 29-30 or to downgrade their representation.

Relations between Riyadh and Damascus chilled after the 2005 assassination of five-times Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, a close Saudi ally -- an attack widely blamed on Syria.

Relations deteriorated further in 2006 when Saudi Arabia implicitly accused the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah of provoking that summer's war with Israel.