CAIRO, 3 March 2004 — Arab foreign ministers failed to agree a formula to turn the Arab League into an organization that would have greater international clout and returned to “square one” yesterday, an official said.
“The ministers went back to square one. They are trying to agree on a joint document for reform,” said the Arab official who asked not to be named. Participants in the meetings in the Egyptian capital said Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria had tried late Monday to prepare a joint draft as the basis of discussions but had met reservations from some Gulf Arab and North African states.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa had meanwhile drafted a document merging the proposals of seven countries during the talks that began on Monday. However, talks yesterday no longer focused on these two documents, but on all the Arab proposals.
“There are no differences, but given the importance of the issue, there are numerous ideas and proposals and each country is presenting its own in complete freedom,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said.
He said the ministers “had the determination to agree on a joint document on reform in order to submit it” to the Arab League summit in Tunisia on March 29-30. Moussa meanwhile said the ministers would draft proposals which they will submit to the summit.
Given the divide, Arab leaders would “probably approve some reform elements and delay approval on other elements until later,” he said.
An Arab League official told AFP that the summit would probably launch economic reforms, such as forming an Arab economic block, as well as approve a mechanism for carrying out league decisions.
He added that plans to create a court of justice, a Parliament, a Arab development bank as well as a cultural council would be postponed until some later date. Arab diplomatic sources said outstanding issues would be postponed until the Arab summit of 2005, which is scheduled for Algiers.
