RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: Mohammed An-Nujaimi, a prominent Sunni Saudi cleric, held talks with Shi'ite Muslim leaders this month in an attempt to soothe anger over an edict by radical sheikhs calling Shi'ism a heresy.

Shi'ite sources were quoted by Reuters as saying this in the last week.

They said An-Nujaimi, head of the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy, a Saudi body grouping Sunni scholars around the world, met last week with Shi'ite cleric Hassan al-Saffar and other religious and community leaders in the Shi'ite area of Qatif in the oil-rich Mominin-dominated Eastern Province.

A group of 22 Sunni clerics issued a fatwa -- or religious edict -- this month saying Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement was posturing against Israel to hide an anti-Sunni agenda and said Shi'ism had "infidel precepts."

In another conciliatory move, prominent tribal leader Mukhlaf al-Shammary from the nearby Sunni city of Khobar -- which has no Shi'ite mosques -- took the rare step of attending a Shi'ite mosque in Qatif during Friday prayers led by Saffar.

The Saudi Information Agency, a dissident group based in Washington, accused the government of trying to reduce the Shi’ite's visibility in the media.

"The Saudi government prevents the press from covering any Shi'ite events in the country," it said in a statement.