Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday discussed over phone with his Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud a draft UN resolution on continued conflicts between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria's SANA news agency reported. The two leaders stressed that "any formula (for a UN resolution) should be agreed by a Lebanese consensus," SANA said.

Assad also slammed "some powers" for "seeking to secure favorable circumstances in the interests of Israel to enable it to get political gains which it failed to win through its aggression, " it said.

The phone conversation came while Arab foreign ministers were meeting in Beirut on the crisis.

A draft UN Security Council resolution agreed upon by France and the United States on Saturday calls for "full cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah which have been involved in a bloody conflict since July 12, but does not call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon.

Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri rejected the draft resolution, saying that it ignored a seven-point plan put forward by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora during an international conference in Rome on July 26 to resolve the crisis.

The seven-point plan includes an immediate ceasefire, a prisoner swap, putting the disputed Shebaa Farms under the UN control, sending the Lebanese army into south Lebanon and expanding a UN peacekeeping force.

Some 900 Lebanese have been killed and a quarter of Lebanon's population displaced since Israel launched a massive assault on Lebanese Hezbollah in retaliation for the abduction of two Israeli soldiers.

Meanwhile, 59 Israeli soldiers and 36 civilians have been killed in the conflict.

Source: Xinhua