RIYADH, 29 March 2007 — President of the UN General Assembly Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa became the first woman to address an Arab summit since the creation of the Arab League in 1945, as she took the podium at the opening of the leaders’ gathering in Riyadh yesterday. The Bahraini lawyer and diplomat said she was very happy to attend the summit. Al-Khalifa is the third woman to hold the UN presidency. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India and Angie Elisabeth Brooks of Liberia were appointed to the presidency in 1953 and 1969 respectively. Al-Khalifa urged Arab countries to remove barriers to ensure the free flow of goods, investment and ideas. She called upon Arab leaders to develop the Arab world into a political and economic force that can enter into dialogue with other countries and cultures.
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All member countries have sent their heads of state except four to the 19th Arab League summit. Prime Minister Muhammad Al-Ghannouchi led the Tunisian delegation, Prince Rasheed headed the Moroccan delegation, Deputy Premier Fahd ibn Mahmoud Al-Saeed led the Omani team while Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Ghedi headed Somalia’s delegation. Libya is the only member state that is not attending the summit.
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EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana yesterday urged Arab states to be flexible in their land-for-peace offer to Israel, warning that without a solution to the conflict the Mideast is at risk of “missing the train of human and economic development.” In Riyadh, Solana called for an end to Israel’s occupation of lands seized in the 1967 Mideast war — a key demand in an Arab peace plan that the two-day gathering intends to relaunch. But he called the Arab initiative “a general concept that has to be developed.” He urged the Arabs and Israel to deal with the plan as a starting point in negotiations rather than a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.
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Arab countries should not take any step toward normalizing ties with Israel until a Palestinian state is created and the Jewish state withdraws from occupied Arab territories, Youssef Al-Qaradawi said yesterday. The prominent Egyptian scholar was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting attended by Muslim and Christian figures shortly after Arab leaders started a two-day summit in Saudi Arabia to revive an Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. “Some people (Arab nations) have normalized with Israel, some of them reject the idea. We will not normalize and we don’t accept normalization as long as the occupation is still there,” Qaradawi told a news conference when asked whether he had any message for the summit. “We don’t accept normalization with Israel unless a Palestinian state is created. When a Palestinian state is created, then we can consider normalizing.” On a visit to Algeria from his base in Qatar, Qaradawi was chairing a conference of the Al-Quds Foundation, a body which seeks to preserve the Arab identity of Jerusalem.
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Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Bashir told Arab leaders yesterday the United Nations should limit its role in the Darfur region to logistical support to African troops. “We do not want confrontation with the international community,” Bashir told a summit of Arab leaders in Riyadh. “What we are trying to do is make sure troops in Darfur are African in look and leadership, while the United Nations would undertake financial, technical and logistic support for these forces.” Bashir has long resisted the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Sudan’s western Darfur region. “The United Nations should concern itself with pushing the peace process between the parties to the conflict,” he said, adding that talks with the United Nations had “gone beyond” a Security Council resolution last year calling for international forces to be sent to the vast desert territory.
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Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the Arab summit would launch no initiative to resolve the political crisis in his country but added that Saudi efforts to push the Lebanese toward a compromise would continue. “I believe the good efforts exerted by the Kingdom ... are continuing but there is no initiative in the true sense,” said Siniora, quoted by his media office in a statement. Officials accompanying President Emile Lahoud said mediation by Saudi Arabia and the Arab League led to both Lebanese delegations agreeing on the wording of an article in the summit’s final statement in which Arab leaders express backing for Lebanon and the establishment of the Rafik Hariri tribunal.
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The Palestinian government expects to receive a pledge of $2.7 billion in aid at the Arab summit, Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said. “We hope to obtain the necessary financial support for 2007, which totals $2.7 billion,” Fayyad said. “We expect Arab leaders to approve today a draft resolution submitted to them on continuing financial aid to the Palestinian Authority for a year to the tune of $55 million per month. There are $1.7 billion in arrears not paid by some Arab brothers last year,” he said.
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited his Palestinian counterpart Ismail Haniyeh to visit Ankara, a report said. The invitation to Haniyeh came at a meeting of the two leaders in Riyadh, the CNN-Turk news channel reported. Neither Erdogan’s spokesman nor the Foreign Ministry here could confirm the report.
— With input from Agencies
