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Riyadh: Arab leaders yesterday opened a key summit in Riyadh, with Saudi Arabia calling for Arab unity and an end to financial sanctions against Palestinians imposed by Israel and the US.
"What did we do in these years" to end the suffering of Palestinians and Iraqis, crisis in Lebanon, foreign interference in Sudan and civil war in Somalia, King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia asked during his opening speech.
"I don't want to blame the Arab League because the league reflects our real situation, so the blame should fall on us. We, the leaders of the Arab nations, our permanent differences, and our refusal to go on the path of unity - all that has made the nation lose confidence in our credibility as well as hope in today and tomorrow," the king said after opening the 19th Arab summit, the first to be held in Saudi Arabia.
The king said the first step on the path of "salvation is the restoration of confidence in us and in each other.
"If confidence is restored, then it will be accompanied by credibility ... and then we will never allow any forces from outside the region to draw the future of the region, and no banner will be raised in the Arab land but the banner of Arabism," he said.
"I call on you to have a new beginning which unites our hearts and ranks," he said, after receiving the presidency of the Arab summit.
Seventeen Arab leaders are taking part in the summit.
Prominent figures
Heads of four countries are represented in the summit by either their envoys or prime ministers.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU Foreign policy Chief Javier Solana, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and the Malay-sian Prime Minister are among the prominent figures attending the summit.
The Palestinian question and the five-year-old Arab land-for-peace initiative are among the top issues on the agenda of the meeting. Bloody situation in Iraq, political crisis in Lebanon and Sudan-UN crisis over Darfur as well as internal conflict in Somalia are high on the agenda.
Several Arab leaders, including the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, called for ending the "unfair siege" on the Palestinian people, support them financially and finalise a mechanism to push forward the peace initiative, which calls for establishing normal relations with Israel and complete withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in 1967 and solving the Palestinian refugees issue as per international resolutions.
"We hope that this meeting will form an Arab committee headed by Saudi Arabia, to follow-up the implementation of the Arab initiative through contacts and cooperation with the quartet and all parties involved in re-launching the peace process," Abbas said.
"We stand at a crossroad. Either we move forward on a real accepted peace [path], or a continuation or an escalation of tension, which many are prepared for," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mousa.
Mousa also stressed that the solution to the bloody conflict in Iraq requires a "political solution and not just security plans."
SECURITY
Traffic minimal as roads were blocked
- Traffic was minimal in Riyadh as a holiday was announced and many roads were blocked as part of security arrangements for the Arab League summit.
- Many Saudis took advantage of the long weekend to travel outside Riyadh. However, flights to key destinations inside Saudi Arabia and abroad, including Makkah and Cairo, were fully booked.
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