Zeibar to Cairo to attend the Foreign ministers meeting; 'an unofficial' Iraqi presence
Iraq-Regional, Politics, 9/8/2003

The Arab League received from its Iraq's representation office yesterday a list of the names of members of the Iraqi delegation which will attend the meeting of the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo tomorrow, according to a source at the AL.

This step came after Arab diplomatic sources in Cairo announced that there is "an almost unanimous consent" on the need to represent Iraq in tomorrow's meeting, and after the new Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiar Muhammad Zeibar announced that he is about to leave Baghdad for Cairo in the hope of taking part in the preliminary meeting and the main meetings of the ministers tomorrow.

However, Zeibar's assertions were confronted by a statement in the name of the AL secretary general speaker Hesham Youssef that the Iraqis will be invited to deliver a speech in the meeting. A matter which was explained that it is an invitation to give a report on the situation in Iraq, but without having an official Iraqi presence.

Qatar's foreign minister Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jaber al-Thani, the chairman of the current session of the council of ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) considers the formation of the Iraqi government as a "step into the right track," stressing the need that the current meetings at the UN security council concerning Iraq will be conducive to a decision through which a schedule will be set for the time to the presence of the occupation forces in Iraq and giving the UN a main role to help the Iraqi people achieving security, stability and reconstruction."

Kuwait's foreign minister, Sheikh Muhammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah said "there are sides which work against the Arab interests and work to isolate our brothers in Iraq from their Arab surroundings by using various justification," while the Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher warned against ruling out Iraq. He said in an inauguration of an Egyptian diplomatic meeting "we have but to deal with Iraq because there are attempts to convince Iraq to take off its Arabisation cloth and to isolate it from the Arab nation."

Zeibar announced that the Iraqi foreign ministry notified the AL secretary general of Iraq's request and desire to attend and to be represented in this ministerial meeting, adding that there are "several programs and projects to take part in the meetings of the UN general assembly by the end of this month and in the meeting of the donor states in Madrid in October." Zeibar spoke of opening Iraqi diplomatic missions ( shortly) in several Arab capitals and in Washington and London.

Previous Stories:
  Governing council is persistent to be presented at AL, differences over the American proposal   (9/5/2003)
  Al-Dleimi: Iraqi interim governing council should not represent Iraq at AL   (8/28/2003)
  Moussa asks Arab states to decide on Iraq's Governing Council participation in AL   (8/27/2003)

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