An undeclared race was apparently underway Monday between trotting attempts to achieve a reconciliation fan and scattered acts of violence, on the eve of national dialogue that is to be sponsored by President Michel Suleiman.

Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan, who lost a senior aide in a car bomb explosion last week, sponsored a reconciliatory meeting between Hizbullah and the Progressive Socialist Party.

But hardly 40-minutes before the meeting got underway, Arslan rushed to Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun to declare that the rapprochement with the PSP would not be at the expense of his Christian ally.

"I am allied to Aoun and Hizbullah and I would not give up this alliance irrespective of conditions," Arslan declared from Aoun's residence in Suburban Rabiyeh, north of Beirut.

Aoun, however, said he backs the Hizbullah-PSP reconciliation, but made it a point that any reconciliation between his FPM and Jumblat's party is not in the offing.

"Any reconciliation with the PSP is postponed, pending settlement of the displaced issue," Aoun said in reference to citizens of Christian villages who were driven out of their homes by PSP attacks during the 1975-1990 civil war.

Meanwhile Hizbullah's Ghaleb Abu Zainab handed over to Aoun the keys to an old Church in the northern village of Lassa, which sparked Criticism from the Phalange Party's politburo because it ignored clerical authorities.

The party, in a statement, recalled that the Maronite Church endowment in Lassa had been confiscated by "a non-Christian" faction, in reference to Hizbullah.

Meanwhile, the PSP-Hizbullah reconciliation meeting at Arslan's residence in khaldeh, south of Beirut, was regarded a "first step."

Arslan said the rapprochement would be followed by a series of meetings between "field" representatives of the PSP and Hizbullah to safeguard the social fabric in the mountain.

Hizbullah's representative to the meeting, cabinet minister Mohammed Fneish, noted, however, that such meetings are not meant to replace the Conference on National Dialogue that Suleiman would preside over at the Baabda Palace on Tuesday.

Fneish also said contacts were underway to facilitate a reconciliation meeting between Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri.

PSP representative, Cabinet Minister Wael Abu Faour, said agreement has been reached with Hizbulah on a "security net" to safeguard the social fabric in the mountain region.

He said the Topic of Beirut reconciliation was 'discussed at length" during the talks.

"The meeting (with Hizbullah) does not mean that we have abandoned our allies," Abu Faour noted.

However, he said the scholastic year is about to start "an no one wants to send his children to a scholastic confrontation."

Meanwhile, clashes raged in the southern refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh between members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction and the militant Jund al-Sham faction.

Sources said at least one person was killed and three people were wounded in the mushrooming clashes with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers on the outskirts of Sidon, provincial capital of south Lebanon.

The clashes coincided with a visit to Sidon by Hariri who has been touring Muslim regions of Lebanon to preach reconciliation.

The series of political efforts followed the explosion of six hand grenades in Beirut's Mazaraa thoroughfare before dawn, which left no casualties but inflicted severe damage, prompting calls for intensifying efforts by security forces to enforce law and order.

Interior Minister Ziad baroud said security can only be achieved if reconciliation efforts managed to produce agreements between the various factions