WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The United States is trying to keep Saudi Arabia from falling into a status that would prompt an arms embargo against the kingdom, a report said Friday.

In what Middle East Newsline called a "last ditch effort," the Bush administration dispatched a senior State Department official to Riyadh earlier this week to discuss a draft of a report that detailed major Saudi violations of religious rights.

The envoy was said to have sought assurances from the Saudi government it would change its policy.

The State Department was to have relayed its annual International Religious Freedom Report to Congress by Sept. 30. The report was meant to have addressed demands by a panel mandated by Congress to deem Saudi Arabia as a "country of particular concern," a term reserved for a leading violator of religious freedom.

But, officials now say the State Department report will be delayed until at least mid-November.