Jordan Times
Monday, May 10, 2004
Arab foreign ministers focus
on political reform
CAIRO (AFP) — Arab foreign ministers turned their focus Sunday to the thorny
issue of political reform, on the second day of closed-door talks aimed at
preventing a repetition of the embarrassing collapse of an annual summit in
March.
In preparation for the postponed summit, which is now tentatively scheduled to
take place in late May at the original venue in Tunis, the ministers on Saturday
discussed the Iraq and Arab-Israeli conflicts.
On the second day in the Egyptian capital, "the ministers are to debate reforms
in the Arab world as well as internal reform in the Arab League," Hisham Zaki,
spokesman for Arab League chief Amr Musa, told AFP.
Another official of the Cairo-based League, on condition of anonymity, said the
secretariat of the 22-member organisation had drawn up a draft statement on "the
Arab vision of internal reforms."
The draft would combine proposals from several Arab countries, including Egypt,
Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen.
The official also said that the "Greater Middle East Initiative," which
Washington is championing to bolster democracy in the region, was not on the
agenda of the ministers' meeting.
The United States says it wants to launch the scheme during a summit of the
Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations in June.
But several Arab countries, including US allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have
criticised the initiative, fearing Washington wants to impose its own cultural
models on the region.
Underlining the sensitivity of the Cairo talks, Tunisia's Foreign Minister Habib
Ben Yahia announced Saturday that the size of the delegations would be limited
in a bid to preserve the confidentiality of the discussions.
The abrupt cancellation of the planned summit in Tunis in late March even as
foreign ministers held preparatory talks was a fiasco for the Arab League.
In the aftermath, the bloc split down the middle over Egyptian proposals to
switch the venue from Cairo, an offer which sparked howls of protest from Tunis.
The Cairo meeting was the fruit of a compromise brokered by the league's
secretariat under which Egypt would host the preparatory talks and Tunisia the
actual summit, now slated for May 22-23.
"Our current meeting is a resumption of that held in Tunis in March," Ben Yahia
told ministers Saturday.
But Tunisia's right to host the reconvened summit has been openly questioned in
the Gulf despite the league chief's announcement of an agreement on the
rescheduling last month.
After the debacle in Tunis, many analysts pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia
which announced in advance that its de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah would
not attend the summit but be represented by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al
Faisal.
Saudi Arabia and Tunisia were reportedly at odds over an Arab League reform
blueprint designed to meet the US-led demands for democratisation and economic
liberalisation across the region.
The ministers also discussed the abuse of prisoners held by US forces in Iraq
and were preparing a strongly worded condemnation, according to Iraqi interim
foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari.
"The draft resolution includes a clear condemnation in firm tones against the
practices inflicted on Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation to which they were
subjected," he told reporters.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail said the abuse highlighted the "double
standards" of the United States which could no longer claim the moral high
ground on human rights.
The minister denied widespread allegations of ethnic cleasning and even genocide
in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur, where government-backed
Arab militias have been fighting non-Arab rebels.
US representatives to the United Nations walked out of a meeting in New York on
Tuesday to protest the re-election of Sudan to the UN Commission on Human
Rights.