(Adds Iran comment in paragraphs 10-11)

RIYADH, March 19 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks published on Monday that relations with Saudi Arabia had passed through a "cloudy" patch, but he hoped this month's Arab summit will help resolve differences.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, once close to Syria's Baathist leaders, was enraged by the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Saudi ally. A U.N. investigation has implicated Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the killing, a charge denied by Damascus.

"This relationship, like any Arab relationship, goes through cloudy patches, let's call it that, and recently there were clouds," Assad told the Saudi daily al-Jazirah.

"We hope the Arab summit will be a new departure between Syria and Saudi Arabia and between the Arabs in general," he said in an interview, adding he had good personal relations with King Abdullah stretching back over a decade.

Saudi Arabia's media last month made great play of the invitation to Assad to attend the Arab summit in Riyadh on March 28.

Few Syrian officials have visited Saudi Arabia in recent months. Assad met Saudi leaders in Jeddah a year ago.

A political standoff between Lebanon's pro-Syrian Hezbollah and the Western-backed Lebanese government following last year's Israeli war against the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group has further soured relations, diplomats and analysts say.

Assad talked of regional leaders as "half-men", in what was taken as a swipe at countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which blamed Hezbollah for starting the war with Israel.

Riyadh is also concerned about the influence of Syria's ally, Iran, in the Arab world, including in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

But Assad said Arab countries should think of moving closer to Tehran.

"We (Syria) should not think of a limit to our relations (with Iran) as long as this serves our region and the Arabs," he said.

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