Divided Arab League sets up 'peace' tour
Brian Whitaker in Cairo, and agencies
Monday March 3, 2003
The Guardian
Arab diplomats were laying plans yesterday for a peace-making tour that will include both Washington and Baghdad.
The move is the only tangible result of the emergency Arab summit held in Egypt on Saturday which, in the words of one Saudi newspaper, lived up to every commentator's worst fears.
Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, said yesterday the mission would "be moving within days".
He was working with officials in Bahrain, which holds the league's presidency, to decide the composition and itinerary of the delegation.
The mission's first stops are expected to be the UN security council and the Bush administration, in an effort to establish exactly what Iraq should do to avoid being attacked.
"When it was asked for specifics, Iraq delivered," said league spokesman Hisham Youssef.
The Baghdad leg of the mission is likely to prove more difficult because Arab leaders are divided over its purpose and, in some cases, over the need to go there at all.
During the summit, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen wanted a delegation to concentrate on delivering a firm anti-war message to Washington, while others thought it should focus on urging Saddam to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors or - in the case of the United Arab Emirates - to go into exile. The result is an uneasy compromise and Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, has already indicated that Baghdad will only welcome a delegation coming "in solidarity with Iraq".
The league's annual summit was brought forward because of the crisis over Iraq and convened in the incongruous surroundings of a hotel set on a golf course in the Red sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
As expected, the summit declared its "complete rejection of an attack on Iraq ... and the need to resolve the Iraqi crisis by peaceful means".
It also called on Arab states to refrain from "any military action that targets the security, safety and unity of Iraq or any other Arab country".
That means they have agreed not to provide facilities for US forces attacking Iraq, according to a highly placed Syrian official - though Kuwait, Qatar and others are likely to interpret it differently.
While several leaders highlighted the need for "a unified stance", even if they disagree on what its wording means, the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, engaged in a public spat with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia over the stationing of US forces in the kingdom.
A call by Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan, president of the UAE, for the Iraqi leadership to go into exile - which many Arab politicians privately regard as the best way to avert war - was not debated
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