CAIRO, 10 May 2004 — Arab leaders favor holding their delayed summit meeting in Tunis on May 22 and 23, as proposed by the Tunisian hosts, Arab foreign ministers said yesterday. The summit will seek common Arab positions on the future of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and reform of both Arab society and the Arab League as an institution.
“The general trend is moving toward fixing the summit for the 22nd and 23rd in Tunis,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters at the Arab League in Cairo.
“There is growing consensus on May 22 and 23 and this should be decided by the end of these meetings,” added an Arab League official, who asked not to be named. Arab foreign ministers were in the second day of a three-day meeting to prepare for the summit, which the Tunisian government called off in late March on the grounds that some countries were too cautious about social and political reform.
Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem of Algeria, whose government had reservations about the first summit, also indicated that the ministers had reached a consensus. “The date proposed for holding the summit ... has been accepted by the Arab League member states,” he said.
The Sudanese minister said the ministers had already agreed on Iraq and would debate reform.
“There are no disagreements and the discussions are excellent,” he told a news conference. Yemen came to the meeting on Saturday with a proposal that the United States and their allies withdraw from Iraq within a year and hand over control to the United Nations and the Arab League, with international peacekeeping forces. The Arab League official said that Yemen had not intended the ministers to adopt the proposal in full and that the ministers had covered all of the points in the document.
Belkhadem said Algeria and other North African countries had brought a joint paper on democratic reforms. “What remains to be discussed relates to the role of women, activating the role of civil society and human rights,” he added.
The Tunisian government cited the same subjects in March when it called off the summit some 36 hours before the opening session. Some Arab delegates have disputed the Tunisians’ explanation for the decision, saying that expectations of a low attendance and a desire to improve their international image might also have been important factors.
