JEDDAH, 1 October 2005 — Eight Arab foreign ministers will meet here tomorrow to work out a strategy to support Iraq and review Arab League preparations to monitor a referendum on the Iraqi Constitution as well as Iraq’s general elections.
The eight-member Arab ministerial committee on Iraq, which was set up on Sept. 8, is expected to discuss the worsening security situation in the war-torn country. The committee is holding its first meeting.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria and Bahrain would discuss a project prepared by the league to support Iraq.
The meeting will also discuss a number of proposals on strengthening contacts with Iraq including opening of a permanent Arab League office in the country, dispatch of an Arab League delegation to Iraq to meet with various ethnic groups.
The ministers will also discuss ways to implement Arab League summit resolutions on Iraq and the role of Arab organizations in Iraq’s reconstruction. According to Al-Riyadh Arabic daily, the League set up the committee last month to set out an Arab strategy to support Iraq.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called for preserving the unity of Iraq. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal recently warned that Iraq was heading toward disintegration.
Iraq’s potential division into a Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni state in the center and a Shiite state in the south would “bring other countries in the region into the conflict,” he told a press conference in Washington last week.
