BEIRUT -- Arab League chief Amr Mussa on Sunday confirmed that an Arab summit scheduled for March will be held in Beirut, despite a request by Libya it be moved to Cairo amid tensions with local Shiite Muslims, AFP reported.

"The summit will be held on the expected date in Beirut," Mussa told Lebanon's Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Hammoud, during a telephone conversation which was quoted by the state ANI news agency.

"Arab efforts are underway to clear the air and calm reservations that some people have raised," Mussa said, adding he would soon visit the city to make preparations for the meeting scheduled for March 25-26.

Mussa, the head of the 22-member league, had earlier accused a Shiite Muslim Lebanese group of jeopardizing the summit over its objections to Libyan Leader Moamer Qadafi's attendance.

The Amal-Faithful-Resistance Movement, formed in the 1980s by members of the Amal Movement founded by Shiite Leader Imam Mussa Sadr in 1970, opposes Qadafi because it says he was behind Sadr's disappearance in 1978.

"These statements criticizing and threatening Moamer Qadafi are negative, dangerous, and affect measures undertaken to bring the Arabs together," Mussa told reporters in Cairo.

He had been asked to comment on Qadafi's proposal to move the summit to Cairo.