RIYADH, 10 January — Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said after talks with Saudi leaders yesterday that an Arab summit slated for March in Beirut would go ahead as planned.
Moussa met with Crown Prince Abdullah, second deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in Riyadh yesterday.
"The Arab summit," whose venue Libya wants changed, "will be held in Beirut as planned," Moussa said at the end of a brief visit to the Kingdom.
The Arab League chief added that he was "still awaiting the Arab countries’ responses to Libya’s request to shift the summit venue" to Cairo.
Moussa, who said his talks here covered both the upcoming summit and the situation in the Palestinian territories, later left for Khartoum on the second leg of an Arab tour that will also take in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Libya.
In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency in Cairo before his departure earlier yesterday, Moussa welcomed Prince Abdullah’s speech to the recent GCC summit in Muscat, Oman, outlining the Arab position on international issues.
Prince Abdullah said the Arabs will not go imploring for their legitimate rights before other countries and the world bodies.
Moussa added that the current situation in the region as well as the world demands a firm and concerted action by the Arabs to regain the legitimate rights.
Tripoli has requested the shift to Cairo because of a long-standing dispute with Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim community.
Most Lebanese Shiite leaders, notably parliament speaker Nabih Berri, accuse Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi of being behind the disappearance of Amal movement’s founder Mussa Sadr during a trip to Libya in 1978. Tripoli maintains Berri himself, who now heads Amal, was behind Sadr’s disappearance.
In Beirut, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said yesterday that his country would host the summit as planned. "The summit will be held in Lebanon at the scheduled date, the issue has been settled," he said.
