**Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri says he is to abandon his attempt to form a national unity government and is stepping down.**Mr Hariri has spent more than 10 weeks trying to assemble a government.
Earlier this week a team he put forward was rejected by Lebanon’s opposition, led by Shia radical group Hezbollah.
President Michel Suleiman is expected to consult with parliament in an effort to nominate a new candidate for PM, reports say.
“Given that my commitment to forming a government of national unity has run up against difficulties that everyone now knows about, I announce that I have informed the president of the republic that I have abandoned trying to form a government,” he said in Beirut.
“I hope that this decision will be in the interests of Lebanon and will permit a relaunch of dialogue,” the AFP news agency reported him as saying.
Mr Hariri - son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a car bomb in 2005 - had been trying to form a government since Lebanon held elections in June.
His pro-Western alliance emerged as the largest party, but needed support of other parties to form a government.
On Monday he proposed a 30-seat coalition cabinet to Mr Suleiman.
But the proposal ran into trouble when Hezbollah refused to agree to the make-up and distribution of cabinet posts.