CAIRO, 9 April 2004 — Tunisia will play host in May to a rescheduled Arab summit, despite calling off the gathering that was set to meet last month, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said yesterday.

“Consultations are under way to fix the exact date of the meeting, in May. The summit will be held in Tunis, there is no competitor on this point,” Moussa told Egypt’s official MENA news agency.

He said a preparatory meeting of Arab foreign ministers will be held in late April at the Cairo headquarters of the 22-member pan-Arab organization.

Egypt had offered to host the summit after Tunisia took the unprecedented decision to call it off. But, as rotating president of the Arab League, Tunis insisted on its right to host the conference.

Tunisia cited the refusal of some Arab states to tackle the issue of political reforms for canceling the event, causing dismay in several Arab capitals that have branded Tunis ill-placed to lecture on democracy.

Nearly all Arab states have opposed a US plan, dubbed the “Greater Middle East Initiative,” which seeks to spread democracy and economic liberalization in the region.

Moussa returned to Egypt on Wednesday, after touring several North African countries, including Tunisia, as part of efforts to reschedule the summit. He is next due to travel to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf states. When Tunis postponed the summit, the Egyptian government offered to host a summit in its place but then backed away from Cairo as a venue, apparently to avoid giving the impression that it was imposing itself on other countries.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said this week that the venue was secondary compared to the need to hold the meeting. He said it would be in Tunis, Yemen, Egypt or even “on the moon”.

Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher missed the start of a foreign tour by Mubarak yesterday because he is still in hospital with complications from a cold, a Foreign Ministry official said. Maher, 68, went into hospital on Sunday and the newspaper Al-Misa said he had heart problems.

The official said he had gone to the hospital for regular checks after a bypass operation some years ago and the doctors then asked him to stay because the cold, compounded by overwork, had affected their readings. Mubarak left Cairo for London yesterday on his way to the US, where he will see US President George W. Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, next Wednesday.