Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul held a meeting on Sunday (March 4) on the fringes of the Arab Foreign Ministers meeting in Cairo. The meeting was to prepare for the annual summit of Arab League heads of state that is scheduled to take place at the end of March in Saudi Arabia. The approaching summit is set to discuss a host of regional crises, from the war in Iraq to the crisis in Darfur and the tense situations in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Efforts to forge unified Arab positions on these crises got off to a shaky start, however, with the meeting beginning in some discord. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam told reporters that his country would not attend the Arab summit, citing Libyan displeasure over the organisation of the meeting. "The decision for the summit had already been taken. It had been decided that the summit would be held in the country the hold the rotating presidency (of the Arab League). Who decided to move it to Riyadh? Who changed this? There is a failure within the Arab system. We have to review the Arab strategy and not waste our time with banal administrative issues," Shalgam told reporters. The Arab summit in Khartoum last year said the annual meeting this year would take place in Egypt, where the Arab League has its headquarters. But Saudi Arabia, which will hold the chairmanship, later offered to host the event in Riyadh and the Arab League accepted the invitati...
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Added: May 21, 2008 |
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| Copyright: GRAPHIC / REUTERS |