VIENNA, 3 March 2004 — A fresh Arab summit will now be held early this month, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday.
Egypt has stepped in and offered to hold the summit, scrapped by Tunisia last week, to dispel the impression that Arab states are divided over the main agenda subjects — Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a common response to the US campaign for Arab reform and democracy.
Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak held talks with Arab heads of state over several days arguing the summit should reconvene as soon as possible.
Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, who met Mubarak in Sharm El-Sheikh on his way to Austria, welcomed Cairo’s call to hold the summit.
Prince Saud said there was no doubt an Arab summit would go ahead.
“There will be a summit, undoubtedly, because there is a consensus,” he told reporters in Vienna.
“There is a decision to hold the summit meeting early this month, so it is a foregone conclusion that there will be a summit,” the minister said.
“What we must do now is to prepare the terrain,” he said.
Tunisia called off the scheduled summit some 36 hours before Arab leaders were due to meet on Monday, saying Arab foreign ministers, in a preliminary meeting, had failed to make adequate commitment to democratic reform, but delegates from other countries disputed the Tunisian explanation.
Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency said on Thursday Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and Syrian President Bashar Assad would visit Egypt tomorrow to meet Mubarak and discuss the summit.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa was to visit Tunisia yesterday before going to Morocco and Algeria for talks about the fresh summit.
Prince Saud said the Kingdom had no plan to present any new initiative for a Middle East peace. “The coming summit will discuss the existing plans,” he said.
One was the road map for peace put forward by the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia.
Referring to Prince Abdullah’s talks with Austrian President Thomas Klestil and Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, Prince Saud said the two sides expressed their concern over Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“Israel’s oppressive practices and assassination of Palestinian leaders were aimed at aborting the peace process and changing the status quo of Arab territories,” he said.
“We have agreed to open new horizons for the peace process though the joint efforts of the European Union and Arab countries,” the prince said.
Prince Saud said his country and Austria agreed that sovereignty in Iraq must be restored as soon as possible.
There was also agreement that the UN must have an important role in the rebuilding of the country.
“The two sides also agreed on the importance of forging international cooperation to fight terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking,” he added.
