DOHA, 5 March 2003 — As calls grow stronger for Saddam Hussein to consider a life in exile, Muslim leaders gathered yesterday for an emergency summit expected to focus on the prospect of a US-led war to oust the Iraqi president.
Formal discussions open today in the third high-level gathering in a week for Arabs and Muslims desperately trying to figure out how to handle a deeply divisive crisis and avert war. Organizers said the Iraq-US crisis will top the agenda of the emergency summit of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference.
But they said it’s up to the leaders to decide if they will discuss an initiative by the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahyan, urging Saddam to step down to avoid a US-led attack.
Kuwait’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Al-Sabah, said here yesterday that the initiative is “not only of historical importance but is timely and the only peaceful exit for this dangerous crisis.”
The initiative also calls for international supervision of post-Saddam Iraq. UAE leaders said they want the conference to discuss the initiative, which was shunned by an Arab summit held in Egypt last week.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher praised Sheikh Zayed’s initiative as “well intentioned,” but he dodged questions whether it will be discussed formally at the summit. “We want to send a clear message to the whole world in the name of the Islamic world,” Maher said.
Morocco’s foreign minister, Mohammed Benaissa, said on arrival yesterday that the crisis between Baghdad and Washington should be resolved peacefully.
Sheikh Zayed became the first Arab leader Saturday to publicly raise the idea of the Iraqi leadership relinquishing power to avoid war over suspicions that it possesses weapons of mass destruction in defiance of a UN regulation approved after Baghdad’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.
On Monday, a meeting in Doha of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council gave its preliminary backing to the initiative, suggesting that it should be discussed further in the Arab League. “The GCC states strongly support the initiative of Sheikk Zayed,” Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikk Hamad ibn Jassem Al-Thani told a press conference after a GCC foreign ministers’ meeting.
Most of the OIC countries have sent low level delegations to the summit. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are represented by ministers or deputy ministers. Iraq sent Saddam’s deputy Izzat Ibrahim.
