"Crown Prince Abdullah will not participate in the summit. The Saudi delegation will be headed by Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal," the official said requesting anonymity.

He did not give the reason for the crown prince's boycott, but the news comes amid objections by Riyadh to a free trade accord signed in September between Bahrain and the United States.

Other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which apart from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia groups Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, plan to sign similar deals, which could further alienate Riyadh.

However, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz is to head Riyadh's delegation to the summit instead, officials said later Sunday.

Sultan, who is number three in the Saudi hierarchy, will lead the oil-rich kingdom's delegation, said a Gulf official in Manama and a statement issued by the royal court in Riyadh.

The Gulf official who earlier announced Abdullah's boycott to AFP, had said that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal would lead the delegation.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.