Reconciliation between Mubarak, Butaflika, summit to be defined after September
Egypt-Algeria, Politics, 8/16/2005

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Algerian President Abdul Aziz Butaflika arrived in the Libyan city of Sert to take part in a tripartite summit with the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qathafi dealing with the Egyptian- Algerian summit and developments of Arab conditions especially in Iraq and Palestine where Israel had started withdrawal from Gaza on Monday.

The Libyan foreign minister Abdul Rahman Shalqam told journalists that the meeting will discuss what he described the different views between Egypt and Algeria, noting that the summit will also discuss urgent and hot issues.

In Cairo, the Egyptian official Middle East News Agency said that Mubarak's talks in Libya with Qathafi and Butaflika will deal with means of reactivating common Arab work issues, and current issues on the Arab arena in light of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Worthy mentioning that Egypt has called for an urgent Arab summit in Sharm el-Sheikh on August 3 following the explosions of Sharm el-Sheikh on July 23rd that resulted in killing 64 persons.

The summit was postponed following the death of the Saudi King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz. Algeria presides over the current session of the Arab League. The Arab League secretary General Amr Moussa has been trying since the beginning of this month to convince Algeria to preside over this urgent summit which no new date was set for.

Egypt had called for summit. But Algeria considers that the right to call an Arab summit should go to it rather than Egypt, because it presides over the current session of the Arab league.

Algeria criticized last year "the Egyptian influence" on the Arab League and demanded reform for the organization in order to establish a general secretariat in which various AL members can preside over. However this Algerian request was withdrawn later.

Mubarak said that the extraordinary Arab summit will be convened after the end of the Egyptian Presidential elections set for early September.

Mubarak denied, following the summit the existence of problems between Egypt and Algeria, noting that he had talked with the Algerian president in his capacity as the rotating president for the Arab summit.

Earlier, the spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency, Suleiman Awad, indicated that the Sert tripartite summit aimed at defining a date for an Arab summit and arrangements for convening it, noting that there is agreement on the need to convene an extraordinary summit and not to wait for the date of the ordinary in March 2006.

Arab diplomats in Libya said that the aims of the tripartite summit, which was not attended by the secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa, is to achieve reconciliation between Butaflika and Mubarak. Moussa, in press statements, lauded efforts made by Qathafi for enhancing inter-Arab solidarity and pushing forward joint Arab action. Moussa expressed hope that inter-Arab contacts and consultations would help create a clear Arab vision regarding the requirements of Arab causes, especially the Palestinian and Iraqi files.

Previous Stories:
  Differences between Cairo and Algeria over Arab summit   (8/1/2005)
  Mubarak receives phone call from Butaflika   (4/15/2005)
  Abdel Kader Haggar stresses depth of Egyptian-Algerian relations   (3/14/2005)

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