Maghreban summit will be held in Libya in november
Maghreb, Politics, 5/26/1999

The seventh Maghreban summit will be held in Libya by mid-November, Libyan foreign affairs secretary of state for Maghreban affairs, Slimane Chehoumi, told London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

The summit will be preceded by a preparatory meeting of Maghreban foreign ministers to be held early October in Algiers, the Libyan official said.

The decision to hold the Maghreban summit, the first in five years, and the maghreban foreign ministers' council was made by the two-day meeting of the follow-up committee of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) held in Algiers on May 17-18.

Libya renounced to host the UMA summit in 1995, because of the stand of its Maghreban partners in the lockerbie issue. The Lockerbie issue has been recently settled after Libya handed over two Libyan nationals to stand trial in the Netherlands on charges of blowing up a U.S. airliner over Scotland in which 270 people were killed in 1988.

Chehoumi told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that his country had renounced to host the Maghreban summit in 1995 "for objective reasons." He expressed hope that these reasons will no longer exist and that the Maghreb countries will step up efforts for a definite lifting of the embargo against Libya.

Recent developments in the Maghreban region, especially the settlement of the Lockerbie issue and the election of a new president in Algeria, are seen as potential factors for the reactivation of the Maghreban process.

The Officials from the five North African countries who attended the Algiers meeting have all called for the revival of the union that they described as an inevitable strategic choice and a decisive project for Maghreban peoples.

The Maghreban delegates expressed hope that the Maghreban march would overcome the difficulties that have so far hampered the UMA construction and vowed to foster Maghreban integration and solidarity.

Previous Stories:
  Maghreban political parties satisfied over developments in UMA   (5/24/1999)
  Maghreban summit will be held before end of current year   (5/19/1999)
  Maghreban officials in Algeria for revival of Arab Maghreb Union   (5/18/1999)

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