On the meeting of the Arab foreign ministers

The Kuwaiti daily al-Rai al-Am said on Sunday that a Syrian- Egyptian dispute took place between Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al- Shara and his Egyptian counterpart, Amr Moussa, after which the Syrian foreign minister withdrew from the closed-door final session of the conference of the Arab foreign ministers which concluded its works in Beirut on Saturday evening.

The Kuwaiti paper quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the withdrawal of al-Shara came under the persistence of the Egyptian side to amend two items in the Lebanese paper calling on the Arab states which have established relations with Israel in the framework of the peace process to freeze these relations and to freeze their participation in the multilateral negotiations, waiting for achievements on the bilateral tracks. Upon discussing reformulating these two items, as a result of the refusal of the Egyptian side, al-Shara opposed and withdrew from the meeting.

The sources added that the discussions resulted in amending the two items, as the word "freeze" was omitted and was replaced by "reconsider."