Kuwait is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to take up the UN Security Council seat that Riyadh has spurned in protest at the world body's failure to end the war in Syria, a senior Kuwaiti official said on Wednesday.

"We are part of efforts to convince Saudi (Arabia) to take the seat back," Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khaled al-Jarallah told reporters, adding that the Saudis had yet to officially notify the United Nations of its decision.

Saudi Arabia's two-year term on the 15-member Security Council would have started on January 1. Its unprecedented decision on Friday to turn down its seat has created uncertainty over the procedures for finding an alternative country to fill it.

Kuwait, which like Saudi Arabia belongs to the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, has emerged as an early front-runner, but Jarallah said: "It is too early to talk about this."-Reuters