RIYADH: Riyadh is decked out to host the fourth summit of Arab-South American countries and the main roads, including the airport road and Khurais road, have been decorated with the national flags of participating countries

An elaborate civil and security arrangement has been made for the high-profile summit.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman has sent letters of invitation to Arab leaders to attend the summit to be held here on Nov. 10 and 11 and make it a grand success in achieving its goal.

To this end the permanent delegates at the Arab League in Cairo held a consultative meeting to discuss preparations for the summit and expressed hope that it would contribute to promoting relations between the Arab countries and South American nations.

The key summit, better known by its Portuguese and Spanish acronym ASPA, is a bi-regional mechanism for cooperation and political coordination which gathers the 22 member states of the Arab League and 12 countries of South America to promote mutual relations.

The summit was proposed by Brazil and its first meeting was held in 2005 in Brasilia, while the second summit was held in Doha in 2009. The last summit was in Lima in October 2012.

The objective of the summit is to ensure greater coordination between political leaders and civil society organizations in the Middle East and North Africa region and South American countries.

ASPA’s cooperation involves actions organized through five committees for economics, science and technology, environment and social and cultural affairs.

Earlier, commenting on the summit, Flavio Marega, Brazilian ambassador in Riyadh, exuded hope that it will address the aspirations to bolster mutual relations.