Arab Gulf ministers boycott the Islamic Doha meeting
A Gulf diplomatic source said on Tuesday that several foreign ministers, members at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will not take part, personally, in the emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of the member states in the "Organization of the Islamic Conference," as an expression of the " egret" of certain several states over not closing the Israeli trade office in Qatar.
In statements to pressmen, the source said that " certain members of the GCC regret Qatar's measure in not closing the Israeli trade office in Doha. He explained that for that reason these countries reduce the level of its representation to the meeting which was called upon by the government of Qatar.
He added that the Saudi foreign minister Nizar Madani will represent his country to the meeting instead of the Saudi foreign minister prince Saud al-Faisal, while the United Arab Emirates EUA will be represented by Abdullah Bin Rashid al-Nueimi, the director of the GCC council at the UAE foreign ministry. He continued that the Kuwaiti minister of State for foreign affairs Sheikh Muhammad al-Salem al-Sabah might represent his country to the meeting.
The same Gulf diplomatic source explained that the GCC member states approved the convening the emergency meeting of the Islamic states ministers after they received a memorandum from the Palestinian Authority, stressing the need to attend the meeting.
Qatar, which assumes the presidency of the organization of the Islamic conference, had called for this meeting to discuss " means of backing the Palestinian people in confrontation of the Israeli aggressions against them." Another Gulf diplomat said " how the Palestinians can be supported while certain Arab countries are not abiding by the Arab and Islamic summits in Cairo and Doha in 2000, which called for severing relations with Israel," in remarks to Qatar.
The Emergency Arab summit in Cairo and the 9th summit of the OIC which was held in Doha in October in 2000 called for severing relations with Israel and halting normalization measures with it until it abides by international legitimacy resolutions.
However, the 9th Islamic summit called on " its member states which had established relations with Israel and also had the intention to maintain relations with Israel in the course of the peace process" to " cut these relations, especially closing Israeli missions and offices and breaking economic relations and halting all forms of normalization with it."