|
Riyadh: Kings, shaikhs and presidents of the majority of Arab countries arrived in Riyadh yesterday to attend the 19th Arab summit, starting today, which is expected to revive a five-year-old Arab peace initiative with Israel.
Heads of 16 states are expected to participate, while four countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Oman and Somalia) are represented by envoys or deputies to their leaderships. It was not clear yesterday afternoon who will to represent Mauritania.
Libya is the only Arab country to boycott the summit. Libyan foreign minister Abdul Rahman Shalgam said earlier the "joint Arab action is marred by disorder".
Meanwhile, the Arab-Israeli peace plan, which was initiated by Saudi Arabia and then endorsed in the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut, tops the agenda of the summit in Saudi Arabia, which is the first to be held in the kingdom since the formation of the Arab League in March 1945, Arab officials and analysts said.
Influence
The fact the summit is being held in Saudi Arabia is one of its main features, said analysts.
"This is because of Saudi influence on the rest of the Arab countries," Mokaram Ahmad, a veteran columnist with the Egyptian Arabic-language paper Al Ahram told Gulf News.
The initiative calls for establishment of normal relations with Israel if the Jewish state withdraws to the lines of June 4, 1967, allows the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and allows the return of Palestinian refugees according to the UN resolutions.
Israel rejected the initiative then. However, it called recently to include certain amendments including the article related to Palestinian refugees. Saudi Arabia stressed no changes would be considered.
"The Arab countries are willing to move, and this has to be for something in return", Hesham Yousuf, Head, Office of the Arab League Secretary-General, told reporters yesterday before adding that "peace is a strategic option" for Arabs.
Asked by Gulf News what the Arab position would be if Israel continues to refuse the present plan, Yousuf replied, "This will be among the elements that will be looked at and will be included in the final communiqué should there be no progress in the coming few weeks." He did not elaborate on the next move.
However, it is expected the summit will form committees to promote the peace initiative in the international arena.
"The Palestinians will be the biggest winners from the summit," said Ahmad. "They will receive a pledge to break the embargo imposed on them, a pledge to pay them the promised financial aid, and to get the support of the summit to their national unity government."
The timing of the summit and the relaunching of the peace initiative, is "very important", said Volkhard Windfuhr, a correspondent for the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.
"If Israel rejects the initiative, and does not seize this current chance, I believe it will lose part of its American support, and lose more of its European support," he told Gulf News. "This is an important summit," he added.
Nearly 500 journalists arrive to cover event
Saudi authorities have facilitated the arrival of nearly 500 journalists from around the world to cover the Arab summit to correct the image of Saudi Arabia, and remove "misunderstandings," Saudi information officials said yesterday.
The message that Saudi wants to deliver "is that there is a misunderstanding about Saudi Arabia," said Saleh Al Nimleh, Ministry of Information Undersecretary of the Foreign Media.
He denied that allowing female journalists to visit the conservative kingdom on business trips was a new phenomenon.
"I find it strange that there is an insistence that Saudi discriminates [between Arabs and non-Arabs and men and women]" he said. This is not the case at all, he added.
|
